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THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  AND  HIS 
PROBLEMS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW   YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO    •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON    •   BOMBAY    •  CALCUTTA  '••». 

MELBOURNE 

V 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 


AND  HIS  PROBLEMS 


BY 
THOMAS  ARKLE  CLARK 

DEAN  OF  MEN,  UNIVERSITY  OP  ILLINOIS,  URBANA,  ILLINOIS 


>      J  )  >  3 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1921 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1920 

Bt  the  macmillan  company 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  April,  1930. 


lit     '   <  - 1    ■ 

'         '        «    c        '     c' 
'  «         «       I      c      c 


^  c  <:•  n 


PREFACE 

n 

^       I  can  not  remember  a  time  since  I  have  been  grown 

when  I  did  not  know,  intimately,  boys  of  high  school  age 

v^  and  in  high  school,  and  when  I  did  not  like  to  sit  down 

and  talk  to  them.    One  group  of  boys,  only  a  few  years 

^^  ago,  I  had  almost  daily  contact  with  from  the  time  they 

^     entered  high  school  until  they  graduated  from  college. 

As  a  college  executive,  I  meet,  personally,  every  autumn, 

hundreds  of  boys  fresh  from  the  training  of  the  high  school, 

*  and  revealing  almost  at  once  what  they  have  gained  and 

[f  what  they  have  missed.    It  is  this  intimate  contact  with 

^  so  many  thousands  of  high  school  boys  that  has  induced 

jv^      me  to  write  the  papers  contained  in  this  little  book. 

Y'^       Morals  and  Manners  was  read  before  a  meeting  of  the 

North  Central  Academic  Association;  Going  to  College  was 

given  as  a  Commencement  address  to  the  boys  of  the 

University  School,  Cleveland,  Ohio;  the  other  papers  have 

not  previously  been  printed. 

Thomas  Arkle  Clark 
Urbana,  Illinois, 
August,  1919. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  High  School  Boy 1 

The  Course 21 

Studies  and  Other  Things 40 

Examinations  and  Grades 56 

The  Leisure  Hour 76 

Books  and  Reading 96 

Social  Activities 114 

Morals  and  Manners 132 

Choosing  a  Profession 152 

Going  to  College 168 


^ 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  AND  HIS 
PROBLEMS 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  AND 
HIS  PROBLEMS 

THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

Bill  and  I  were  walking  down  town  one  September 
afternoon  talking  in  a  friendly  way  as  we  were  accustomed 
to  do.  School  was  to  open  the  next  day,  and  Bill  was  to 
begin  his  high  school  course.  He  seemed  more  thought- 
ful than  usual;  something  I  could  not  make  out  was  on 
his  mind. 

"  What  is  it,  BUI?  "  I  asked  finally.  "  What  big  scheme 
are  you  working  out?" 

"Won't  tomorrow  be  a  wonderful  day!"  he  exclaimed. 
It  was  to  him  the  beginning  of  a  new  existence. 

The  entrance  of  the  boy  into  high  school  comes  at  the 
most  critical  period  of  his  Hfe.  He  is  fourteen  years  of 
age  usually,  if  he  is  a  normal  boy,  and  fourteen  marks  the 
dividing  line  between  childhood  and  youth — childhood 
which  passes  all  too  soon,  youth  which  opens  up  a  thou- 
sand possibiUties,  which  stirs  a  thousand  new  emotions, 
new  impulses  and  new  desires,  which  puts  before  him  a 
thousand  opportunities  and  a  thousand  new  temptations 
for  which  he  is  often  unprepared.  It  is  a  time  of  restless- 
ness and  change  for  the  boy,  perhaps  which  tends  often  to 

1 


2  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

make  him  give  up  school  and  to  drive  him  upon  the  rocks. 
It  is  perhaps  to  be  deplored  that  high  school  and  adoles- 
cence should  come  at  the  same  time. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  many  thoughtful  teachers  have 
tried  to  change  the  situation  by  making  it  possible  for 
children  to  complete  the  work  of  the  grades  by  the  time 
they  are  twelve,  so  that  they  may  be  well  entered  upon 
the  work  of  the  high  school  before  the  time  of  physical 
transition  comes.  Whether  or  not  such  reorganization  of 
school  work  is  feasible  and  whether  or  not  it  will  ever  be 
generally  made,  depends  upon  a  good  many  things  which 
it  is  hardly  desirable  to  discuss  here. 

It  is  about  the  boy  himself  that  I  want  most  to  speak 
and  of  the  various  problems  which  at  the  high  school  age 
he  is  called  upon  to  solve.  A  lot  of  things  are  happening 
to  him  about  the  time  he  enters  high  school,  very  im- 
portant things,  too,  and  yet  he  is  seldom  prepared  for 
these.  He  does  not  understand  the  situation  at  all  him- 
self, and  those  who  know  anything  about  it  seldom  help 
him  out.  His  teachers  are  generally  afraid  to  tell  him 
what  he  ought  to  know  about  himself,  or  they  are  perhaps 
so  taken  up  with  presenting  to  him  facts  about  history  and 
economics  and  grammar  and  mathematics  and  the  lives 
and  accomplishments  of  other  men,  that  they  have  no 
time  to  give  to  the  boy  himself.  Even  his  Sunday  school 
teacher  who  ought  to  get  down  to  practical  every  day 
matters,  generalizes  on  the  facts  and  the  phrases  of  the 
Bible  and  seldom  if  ever  makes  any  personal-  or  practical 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  3 

application  of  its  teachings  to  the  boy's  daily  life.  His 
mother  has  never  been  a  boy,  so  she  has  no  idea  what 
^  revolutions  are  going  on  in  his  mind  and  body  unless  he  tells 
her  as  he  infrequently  does,  of  the  changes  in  view  point 
which  passing  childhood  and  dawning  youth  bring,  and  his 
father — his  father  has  long  ago  forgotten  that  he  ever  was 
a  boy,  so  that  he  gives  the  son  no  concern. 

The  sensible,  sympathetic  father  who  takes  his  four- 
teen-year-old boy  into  his  confidence  and  who  talks  to 
him  frankly  about  the  changes  which  are  going  through 
and  within  him  is  so  rare  as  to  be  a  negligible  quantity 
in  the  discussion  of  the  boy  and  his  problems.  Ninety- 
five  per  cent  of  the  boys  who  enter  college  from  high 
school  will  say,  if  asked,  that  their  fathers  have  never 
so  much  as  mentioned  to  them,  anything  that  had  to 
do  with  sex  or  adolescence.  What  the  boy  learns  at 
this  time  about  his  body  and  about  the  mysteries  of 
life  generally  comes  from  boys  as  ignorant  as  himself, 
or  more  likely  than  not  from  some  one  who  is  not  only 
ignorant  but  whose  moral  ideals  are  low  and  whose  tenden- 
cies are  vicious.  It  is  the  rowdy  and  the  street  loafer,  and 
the  nomadic  hired  man  who  has  picked  up  his  facts  from  the 
gutters,  and  the  ignorant  and  the  vulgar  minded  who  solve 
our   boys'    sex    problems    for    them — more's    the    pity! 

A  good  many  things  are  happening  to  a  boy  who  is  just 
entering  high  school,  as  I  have  said.  Educationally  he  is 
forming  an  entirely  new  relationship.  High  school  is  differ- 
ently run  from  the  elementary  school.    He  will  have  more 


4  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

liberty  and  less  restraint  than  he  has  been  accustomed  to, 
\  his  teachers  will  treat  him  more  as  a  man  than  he  has  ever 
before  been  treated.  The  subjects  which  he  will  take  up  are 
in  themselves  more  interesting,  they  require  more  thought 
and  less  memory,  more  independence  and  more  origi- 
nality. He  will  need,  if  he  is  to  get  on,  to  apply  his 
mind  more  seriously  and  for  longer  periods  of  time  than 
has  been  necessary  before.  He  will  have,  almost  for  the 
first  time,  opportunities  for  thought  and  reasoning.  As 
he  takes  advantage  of  these  opportunities  and  begins  to 
think  and  plan  and  act  for  himself,  he  will  gain  the  sort  of 
strength  that  he  will  need  later  in  life.  The  more  responsi- 
bility he  can  take  at  this  time  the  better  for  him.  If  he 
has  a  job  or  an  obligation  of  some  sort  that  requires  regular 
daily  attention  it  will  be  of  tremendous  advantage  to  him. 
It  will  strengthen  his  body  and  so  reinforce  his  will.  The 
more  he  is  repressed,  the  longer  some  one  else  does  his 
thinking  for  him  and  shoulders  his  responsibilities,  the 
longer  and  the  more  assuredly  he  will  remain  a  child. 

But  the  most  important  things  that  are  happening  to 
him  are  physical  and  emotional.  His  body  changes  rapidly. 
His  shoulders  broaden,  his  arms  and  legs  shoot  out  so  '.'^ 
fast  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  keep  him  inside  his ,.  "i 
clothes.  He  grows  up  overnight,  like  a  mushroom. 
His  voice  deepens,  and  he  begins  to  realize  for  the  first 
time  perhaps  that  he  is  a  boy  and  that  he  will  soon  be 
a  man.  It  is  his  awkssard  age  when  no  one  understands 
him  and  when  he  least  of  all  understands  himself.     He 


.A/ 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  5 

is  not  so  frank  as  he  was.  He  keeps  a  great  many  things 
to  himself,  or  if  he  tells  them  at  all,  he  tells  them  to  his 
boy  friends  only,  because  most  of  all  he  dislikes  being 
laughed  at  or  thought  ignorant.  A  thousand  things 
about  his  own  being  awaken  his  curiosity,  and  about 
these  he  is  eager  for  information,  but  he  seldom  asks 
questions,  because  he  would  not  for  the  world  suggest 
the  fact  he  does  not  know  the  things  that  he  is  the  most 
eager  to  learn.  He  will  even  lie  rather  than  admit  igno- 
rance of  the  questions  which  concern  him  most  vitally.  He 
is  alert;  he  keeps  his  ears  and  his  eyes  open;  but  too  often 
what  he  learns  is  in  no  sense  enlightening  or  illuminating, 
and  injures  rather  than  helps  him  out  of  his  quandary. 
Few  people  talk  frankly  and  openly  about  the  subjects 
"wHTch  interest  his  developing  mind.  He  wants  very  much 
to  be  a  man  all  at  once,  and  it  is  this  desire  very  largely, 
no  doubt,  which  causes  him  so  easily  to  fall  into  the 
temptation  of  forming  the  bad  rather  than  the  good 
habits  of  men.  I  have  never  been  able  to  understand 
why  to  a  boy  bad  habits  are  likely  to  seem  so  much 
more  manly  than  good  ones. 

In  addition  to  the  physical  changes  which  are  going 
on  in  his  body  there  are  within  him  emotional  changes 
quite  as  great  if  not  more  so.  He  is  subject  at  this  time 
more  than  at  any  other  time  of  his  life  to  religious  influ- 
ences. If  there  is  a  religious  revival  in  the  community, 
he  is  among  the  first  to  show  interest  in  it,  and  to  "come 
forward."    If  he  gets  by  this  period  of  life  without  taking 


6  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

any  definite  stand  in  religious  matters  it  will  take  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  logic  or  persuasion  later  to  stir 
him.  This  is  his  time  of  idealism,  of  the  awakening  in 
him  of  respect  and  reverence  for  God  and  that  which 
is  best  in  man.  Those  who  teach  him  may  not  wisely 
forget  this  fact. 

He  is  becoming  a  hero  worshiper,  too,  and  it  is  the 
physical  hero  who  receives^hiis  devotion.  Football  stars 
and  clever  baseball  players  and  prize  fighters  attract  his 
attention.  If  the  question  of  legalizing  prize  fights  were 
left  to  the  vote  of  high  school  boys  the  affirmative  vote 
would  be  overwhelming.  If  he  reads  the  newspapers 
at  all  it  is  the  sporting  sheet  for  which  he  first  asks; 
ho  soon  learns  who  is  high  man  in  sporting  circles,  it 
is  not  long  before  he  can  call  all  the  better  known  ones  by 
their  first  names,  and  he  follows  their  performances  like 
a  personal  friend.  Adventure,  deeds  of  heroism,  physical 
prowess  of  all  sorts  fill  his  mind  and  fire  his  imagination.' 
It  is  unfortunate  if  his  teacher  at  this  time  is  a  physical 
weakling  or  unsympathetic  with  physical  fitness  and  ath- 
letic sports.  Such  a  man  will  have  little  influence,  moral  or 
intellectual,  with  the  fourteen-year-old.  It  is  the  man  who  ^ 
can  knock  a  home  run,  or  break  through  the  interference,  j 
or  lick  anybody  who  challenges  him,  who  is  a  hero  in  the/ 
boy's  eyes. 

I  have  always  been  in  theory  opposed  to  corporu' 
punishment  and  a  strong  advocate  of  moral  suasion.  An 
experience  I  had  soon  after  I  got  out  of  college  almost. 


\J  rp 


]:  ^ 


) 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  7 

converted  me  to  the  opposite  theory.  I  was  principal  of 
a  school  with  an  enrollment  of  several  hundred  boys,  a 
good  many  of  them  of  high  school  age.  They  were  rough, 
ill-trained,  and  notoriously  hard  to  control  and  had  driven 
out  more  than  one  timid  teacher  before  my  arrival.  For 
two  weeks  I  got  on  with  them  moderately  well  without 
laying  a  hand  on  any  one.  I  was  pleasant  and  firm;  I 
took  a  good  many  of  their  pranks  lightly,  with  the  hope 
that  if  I  did  not  notice  their  deviltries  too  much  they  would 
be  discontinued. 

I  was  quite  mistaken,  however.  The  boys  misinterpreted 
my  point  of  view  entirely.  They  thought  me  soft-hearted, 
afraid  to  wield  the  willow  switch,  a  weakling,  in  fact.  It 
was  only  after  I  had  soundly  thrashed  a  half  dozen  or  so 
of  the  leaders  that  they  had  any  respect  for  me.  They 
all  adored  physical  strength,  and  those  whom  I  castigated 
most  vigorously  were  throughout  my  regime  the  most 
docile  and  they  love  me  today. 

If  the  boy  develops  a  taste  for  reading  at  this  point  in 
his  life,  and  it  is  well  if  he  does,  it  is  no  sentimental  stuff 
such  as  his  sister  dotes  on,  that  pleases  his  taste.  War  and 
bloodshed  and  adventure  hold  him.  Strategy  and  deep-laid 
plots  and  hairbreadth  escapes  are  to  his  liking.  Indians 
and  burglars  and  highwaymen  are  his  ideals.  He  courts 
danger  and  adores  exhibitions  of  physical  courage.  He  will 
probably  break  a  bone  or  two  in  attempting  to  emulate 
the  physical  stunts  which  most  please  him.  If  he  ever 
runs  away  from  home  it  will  be  now,  and  most  normal  boys 


8  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

of  fourteen  have  at  least  seriously  contemplated  such  an 
action  more  than  once,  if  they  have  not  actually  put  it  into 
effect.  It  is,  of  course,  not  pleasant  to  have  a  favorite 
son  or  pupil  "turn  up  missing"  as  an  Irishman  would 
say,  but  it  is  nothing  to  be  especially  worried  about, 
for  the  boy  who  does  so  is  only  following  a  natural  tend- 
ency, and  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  he  will 
return  better  satisfied  with  home  and  school  than  before, 
and  be  none  the  worse  for  the  adventure.  It  is  as  nor- 
mal and  as  harmless  for  a  young  boy  to  run  away  as  it  is 
for  a  young  girl  to  weep  or  to  be  sentimental. 
'  It  is  this  spirit  of  adventure,  largely,  this  desire  to  be 
independent  and  to  show  early  in  life  manly  characteristics 
that  leads  most  boys  into  certain  habits  that  are  either 
harmful  or  immoral.  It  is  this  reason,  I  am  sure,  that 
caused  me  first  to  smoke.  The  older  boys  with  whom  I  was 
associating  were  snaokirigrT-big,  black  and  very  cheap  cigars 
they  were — and  I  had  never  smoked.  As  I  recall  now  I 
had  never  felt  any  desire  to  do  so  nor  had  I  had  been  given 
any  parental  suggestions  on  the  subject.  But  when  one 
of  the  fellows  handed  me  a  cigar,  never  guessing  that  I  was 
quite  innocent  of  any  personal  experience  with  smoking, 
I  felt  a  thrill  go  through  me.  He  had  paid  me  a  compliment 
as  he  might  have  done  had  he  asked  me  to  give  him  change 
for  ten  dollars,  or  as  I  might  feel  if  some  one  should  apply 
for  the  position  of  butler  at  my  humble  dwelling;  and  I 
smoked  the  bitter  sickening  thing  to  the  last  available 
shred  thinking  myself  by  so  doing  so  much  the  more  a  man. 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  9 

The  worst  of  it  all  was  that,  though  it  made  me  a  trifle 
dizzy,  it  did  not  turn  me  pale  nor  nauseate  me  as  it 
should  have  done,  and  cure  me  of  the  habit.  On  the 
contrary  my  success  made  me  the  more  conceited  and 
tended  to  confirm  me  in  the  opinion  that  I  was  very  rapidly 
taking  on  manly  characteristics,  as  I  suppose  such  expe- 
riences affect  other  boys  of  the  age  I  was  at  that  time. 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  thought  to  condone  the  habit  of 
smoking  by  this  explanation  of  the  cause  which  leads  to 
it,  for  few  people  have  been  in  better  position  to  see  how 
frequently  it  injures  a  boy's  nervous  system  and  reduces 
his  efficiency  than  I  have  been,  and  fewer  people,  perhaps, 
have  been  so  willing  as  I  to  relinquish  the  habit  when  they 
recognized  just  how  detrimental  it  was  in  its  effects. 
^  The  habit  of  swearing  comes  in  the  same  class.  I  trust 
that  none  ofmy  readers  are  addicted  to  profanity  nor  ever 
have  been,  but  if  it  happens  that  any  one  has  used  or  does 
use  an  occasional  profane  word  somewhat  stronger  it  may 
be  than  "darn  "  or  "gosh  "  or  "  golly,"  if  he  will  recall  for  me 
when  he  first  succumbed  to  the  temptation,  I  am  sure  it 
was  in  an  attempt  to  simulate  courage,  or  strong  manly 
emotion  of  some  sort.  It  shows  experience  with  the  world 
and  contact  with  bold  men,  the  boy  thinks,  to  be  able  to 
rip  out  a  few  careless  oaths  or  other  strong  words.  pThe 
habit  is  a  low,  vulgar,  irreverent  one,  it  is  true,  which  to 
sensible  thinking  people  can  give  only  the  impression  of 
crudity  and  careless  rearing,  and  bad  taste,  even  if  it  goes 
no  further  than  that  and  does  not  suggest  actually  bad 


10  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

moralgilbut  to  the  boy  himself  who  falls  into  such  a 
habit  there  is  often  only  the  desire  to  be  thought  a  man. 

It  was  a  somewhat  puzzled  teacher  who  talked  to 
one  of  his  pupils  not  long  ago.  The  boy  was  only  seven- 
teen, he  came  of  a  very  quiet,  respectable  and  even 
religious  family,  and  he  had  himself  been  in  the  habit 
of  going  to  church  and  Sunday  school  quite  regularly. 
No  one  had  thought  of  accusing  him  of  hypocrisy  or 
inconsistency,  and  yet  the  night  before  he  had  been 
drunk.  He  could  not  himself  quite  explain  how  or  why 
it  had  all  happened.  He  had  not  planned  the  orgy  de- 
liberately, but  he  had  been  working  hard,  he  had  had 
little  recreation,  and  he  had  grown  tired  of  the  situation, 
and,  to  use  his  own  words,  had  "just  cut  loose."  Now 
that  it  was  all  over  and  he  had  a  little  time  to  think, 
he  found  no  special  satisfaction  in  the  memory  of  his 
escapade,  and,  stranger  still  to  his  teacher,  he  had  no 
[Special  regret  excepting  that  his  unwise  combining  of 
various  forms  of  intoxicants  had  made  him  horribly 
sick  and  had  left  him  with  a  coated  tongue  and  a  dull 
headache. 

"I  don't  suppose  I'll  ever  do  it  again,"  he  said,  "but 
I  just  had  to  have  that  experience  once  in  my  Ufe." 

He  was  learning  slowly  a  fact  that  many  boys  and 
their  teachers  find  it  difficult  to  learn,  and  that  is  that 
the  main  problem  of  the  high  school  boy  whether  in 
school  or  out  is  the  problem  of  self-control — control  of 
the  body,  control  of  the  mind,  control  of  the  emotions. 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  11 

The  most  important  problem  which  the  high  school 
boy  has  is  the  discipline  of  his  mind.  It  isn't  easy  to 
hold  one's  attention  to  a  dull  stupid  book  on  mathe- 
matics or  Latin  when  one  would  far  rather  be  climbing 
a  tree  or  playing  at  baseball,  but  it  is  often  very  neces- 
sary.    A  boy  does  not  go  to  high  school  so  much  for,   v^'"'     Y- 


the  facts  he  learns  in  mathematics  or  Latin  or  chemistry 
as  for  the  discipline  he  gets  through  learning  these  things 
Of  course  every  one  needs  information,  and  a  boy  may  ] 
be  excused  if  he  thinks  that  the  information  he  acquires 
at  school  is  the  main  thing  for  which  he  spends  his  days 
and  nights;  but  if  he  does  think  so,  he  is  mistaken.  The 
most  important  thing  for  any  boy  is  to  learn  to  think 
quickly  and  correctly,  so  to  train  his  mind  that  it  will 
do  what  he  wants  it  to  do  within  a  definite  time  and 
at  a  definite  time. 

"I  was  in  a  hurry,"  you  explain  to  your  teacher  or 
the  boss  when  he  calls  your  attention  to  the  fact  that 
\the  work  you  have  accomplished  is  inaccurately  or  care- 
lessly done,  "and  did  not  have  time  to  do  the  job  as 
well  as  I  could  have  done  had  I  had  more  time;"  or 
"My  mind  was  wandering,  and  I  could  not  get  down 
to  business,"  you  offer  as  an  alibi  for  not  having  a  piece 
of  work  accomplished  when  it  was  called  for.  Bu^the 
l'  well-trained  boy  or  man  will  be  the  master  and  not  the 
ilave  of  his  mind,  and  will  have  so  done  his  work  in  high 
school  or  in  college  that  his  brain  will  submit  to  his 
direction  and  will   plan  the   composition  or  solve  the 


:  '^ 


i; 


12  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

mathematical  problem,  or  get  the  right  answer  when 
these  things  need  to  be  done.  There  is  little  time  for 
inspiration  when  we  are  engaged  in  doing  the  regular 
work  of  the  world.  When  there  is  a  job  to  be  done  we 
can  not  wait  until  we  "feel  like  it"  before  taking  up 
the  work.  If  he  has  developed  these  qualities  of  regular 
work  and  concentration  of  mind  which  it  is  possible 
for  every  high  school  boy  to  develop,  he  can  do  what 
has  to  be  done  whether  he  feels  like  it  or  not.  Men  could 
not  wait  until  they  were  emotionally  prepared  when 
they  were  called  into  battle;  they  went  to  the  front  when 
the  call  came;  they  went  "over  the  top"  on  the  second. 
They  had  been  trained  to  be  ready  at  any  time,  and  a)L^ 
boy's  mind  should  be  so  trained.  \jf^  ^j-^ 

Now  an  athlete  soon  learns  that  no  matter  how  physi- 
cally clever  he  may  be,  no  matter  how  much  natural 
strength  of  body  or  fleetness  of  limb  he  may  possess, 
he  will  never  really  excel  unless  he  practjces  regularly, 
unless  he  is  constantly  striving  to  do  his  best  and  to 
make  each  succeeding  best  a  little  better  than  was  the 
fonner.  It  is  often  very  difficult,  however,  for  the  high 
school  boy  or  for  his  older  and  presumably  wiser  brother 
to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  training  of  his  mind  is 
not  materially  different  from  the  training  of  his  body. 
A  clever,  quick-witted  boy  can  pick  up  a  lot  of  informa- 
tion if  he  keeps  his  eyes  and  ears  open;  he  can,  in  truth, 
with  little  or  no  concentrated  study  pick  up  quite  enough 
to  get  by  his  high  school  examinations  creditably  or  even 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  13 

to  be  excused  from  them,  if  that  is  the  custom  of  the 
school,  on  account  of  his  cleverness,  and  still  have  dis- 
ciplined his  mind  very  little.  Unless  he  studies  regularly, 
unless  he  pushes  himself  often  to  do  his  intellectual 
best,  he  will  train  his  mind  as  inadequately  as  the  athlete 
trains  his  body  when  he  practices  irregularly  and  never 
does  his  best. 

"I  don't  see  why  George  failed  in  college,"  I  heard  a 
mother  say  not  long  ago.     ''He  never  studied  in  high     ,,}-J^ 
school,  and  yet  he  managed  to  get  fine  grades."  v.       . 

She  did  not  realize  that  she  had  herself  given  the  explana-  ';  ^y 
tion.  The  high  school  boy  who  is  so  clever  that  he  never 
has  Jto_  "  crack "  a  book,  as  they  say,  who  has  never 
submitted  even  for  a  brief  time  to  mental  drudgery,  who 
doesn't  pretty  frequently  settle  down  and  dig  his  level  best, 
is  going  to  have  trouble  later  with  his  brain,  for  sometime 
when  he  will  want  it  to  work,  it  will  rebel  Uke  a  balky  ill- 
trained  horse.  It  will  run  away  from  him  as  he  ran  away 
from  his  duties  at  home.  The  high  school  boy  in  many^j 
cases  knows  little  about  concentration  and  less  about 
hard,  consistent  study.  That  is  why  he  fails  sometimes 
when  he  goes  to  college,  and  quite  as  often  as  not  it  is 
the  clever  boy  in  high  school  who  fails  when  he  gets  to 
college. 

Regular  study  hours,  the  doing  of  difficult  things  well, 
the  holding  of  oneself  to  accuracy  and  rapidity  of  thinking, 
concentration  of  attention  upon  a  definite  problem  or 
piece  of  work  for  a  reasonable  time — these  are  some  of  the 


14  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

methods  which  any  boy  may  employ  for  training  himself 
to  think. 

A  boy's  body  ought  to  be  trained  as  well  as  his  mind. 
It  is,  of  com-se,  possible  to  find  illustrations  of  men  dis- 
tinguished for  their  intellectual  achievments  who  have 
had  frail,  ill-developed  bodies,  but  this  is  the  exception 
and  not  the  rule.  The  muscles  that  are  developed  and 
trained  early  are  more  easily  trained  and  more  perma- 
nently as  well,  for  the  physical  skill  learned  in  youth  is 
soon  recovered  in  old  age,  even,  if  apparently  forgotten. 

I  watched  a  man,  nearly  sixty  years  of  age,  not  long  ago 
play  a  tennis  match  with  a  young  fellow.  The  older  man 
had  played  little  in  thirty  years,  and  he  seemed  rather  slow 
and  awkward  at  first.  Gradually,  however,  his  muscles 
responded  to  the  impulse  of  his  brain;  his  old  tricks  came 
back  to  him,  he  recovered  his  serve,  he  placed  his  balls  with 
surprising  accuracy.  He  was  winded  a  little,  perhaps, 
when  the  set  was  ended,  but  he  had  won  against  a  very 
worthy  opponent. 

The  high  school  boy  growing  as  quickly  as  he  does  is 
awkward.  He  will  remain  in  that  condition  unless  he 
trains  his  body  rigidly  and  regularly.  He  should  learn  to 
swun  and  to  row  a  boat  and  to  ride  a  horse;  to  run  and 
climb  and  jump.  He  should  develop  skill  in  as  many  out- 
of-door  games  as  possible  such  as  golf  and  baseball  and 
tennis.  If  he  can  learn  to  wrestle  and  box  and  dance  so 
much  the  better.  So  far  as  he  has  control  over  his  body 
he  will  find  it  easier  to  exercise  control  over  his  emotions. 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  15 

The  ability  to  stand  on  one's  feet  and  speak  is  almost 
as  much  a  matter  of  the  body  as  of  the  mind.  If  a  boy 
knows  how  to  manage  his  feet  and  what  to  do  with  his 
hands  and  how  to  stand  erect,  he  will  find  usually,  that  he 
has  enough  in  his  head  out  of  which  to  make  a  pretty  fair 
speech.  Every  boy  in  high  school  ought  to  practice  suf- 
ficiently to  be  able  to  speak  without  having  his  hands  shake 
or  his  knees  tremble,  and  once  he  has  learned,  he  is  quite 
unlikely  ever  to  forget. 

I  asked  a  very  effective  public  speaker  not  long  ago  if 
his  ability  to  speak  well  was  natural  or  acquired. 

"I  was  the  shyest  sort  of  boy,"  was  his  reply,  "I 
stammered  and  hesitated  and  turned  cold  with  fright  when- 
ever I  got  on  my  feet  to  speak.  I  determined,  even  while 
I  was  in  high  school,  to  learn  to  talk  extemporaneously, 
and  I  forced  myself  to  do  so  whenever  I  had  a  chance,  and 
to  speak  as  correctly  and  as  much  to  the  point  as  I  could. 
Every  boy  can  learn  if  he  tries." 

In  addition  to  controlling  his  mind  and  his  body, 
one  of  the  most  important  things  that  a  boy  just  enter- 
ing upon  youth  should  learn  is  the  discipline  and  control 
of  his  desires  and  his  emotions.  All  sorts  of  new  emotions 
and  desires  and  passions  rush  upon  the  fourteen-year-old 
boy,  and  in  so  far  as  he  subdues  and  controls  and  directs 
these,  he  will  become  a  strong  man.  It  is  his  failure  to 
do  this  that  causes  him  to  run  away  from  home,  or  to 
learn  to  smoke  and  to  swear  and  to  develop  habits  of 
mind  and  of  body  that  are  unclean  and  immoral.    It  is  as 


M./" 


i/ 


16  /v /^      THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 


often  as  not  first  from  ignorance  that  he  does  these  things, 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  it  is  he  and  not  his  environ- 
ment that  is  changing.  He  often  blames  his  parents 
or  the  conditions  under  which  he  lives  for  his  discon- 
tent and  unhappiness,  while  the  truth  is  that  all  these 
new  feelings  and  desires  which  are  striving  to  get  control 
of  him  are  the  result  of  sexual  changes  which  are  g' 
on  in  his  body,  and  which  are  causing  him  to  look  at 
life  from  an  altogether  different  angle.  A  most  important 
thing  for  him  now  and  for  the  future  is  that  he  learn 
to  control  these  desires  and  not  that  he  let  them  control  -P 
or  subdue  him.  ^       /JD^  ^       ''\M)^M  j^>" 

All  sorts  of  temptations  will  come  to  him  at  this  tiine. 
If  he  can  be  made  to  understand  that  his  body  with  all 
its  parts  is  a  sacred  thing  which  his  creator  has  given 
into  his  care  to  keep  clean  and  strong  and  undefiled,  if 
he  can  turn  aside  vulgar  suggestions,  if  he  will  refrain 
from  impure  words  and  impure  thoughts,  and  impure  acts 
of  all  sorts,  he  will  learn  self-control  of  immeasurable 
value  to  him  not  only  as  a  boy  but  as  a  man.  For  all  these 
things  sap  a  growing  boy's  strength,  they  reduce  his 
vitality,  they  undermine  his  character,  they  make  him  less 
able  to  think  and,  worgt  of  all,  they  make  him  far  less  a 
man.    .  .x^    , 

Bad  sexual  habits  in  the  developing  boy  are  the  greatest 
evil  of  which  he  can  be  guilty.  They  take  away  his 
initiative,  they  increase  his  self-consciousness,  they  rob 
him  of  his  physical  strength,  and  they  weaken  his  mind.    It 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  17 

is  only  by  living  a  clean,  self-controlled  sexual  life 
that  a  boy  can  make  the  most  of  his  physical  and  men- 
tal powers. 

The  boy  of  fourteen  begins  usually  to  take  his  first 
real  interest  In  society  when  he  enters  high  school.  He  is 
making  his  first  real  friends,  and  he  is  coming  to  realize 
for  the  first  time  the  basis  upon  which  friendship  is  formed. 
Here  again  self-control  and  discipline  are  necessary.  A 
boy's  friendships  determine  his  character  as  much  as  any 
influence  which  operates  in  his  hfe.  Very  few  of  us  have 
formed  alone  the  habits  that  possess  us,  but  on  the  con- 
trary we  have  done  so  in  connection  with  one  or  more  of 
our  friends.  When  a  high  school  boy  cuts  class  or  learns  to 
smoke  or  stays  out  late  at  night  or  falls  into  any  sort 
of  irregularity,  no  one  who  has  any  sane  knowledge  of 
human  nature  ever  supposes  that  he  was  alone  when  he 
did  so.  The  fourteen-year-old  fonns  into  groups,  he  or- 
ganizes little  exclusive  societies,  he  has  his  particular  pals 
with  whom  he  consorts  and  schemes  and  under  whose  in- 
fluence he  develops  character  and  leadership. 

In  all  these  close  relationships  which  grow  up  between 
boys  of  high  school  age  there  is  invariably  a  leader.  All 
make  suggestions  and  present  plans,  but  in  every  group 
of  boys  there  is  some  one  whose  opinion  is  paramount, 
whose  word  and  whose  decision  is  law.  Now  at  the  outset 
any  boy  may  determine,  negatively  at  least,  with  whom 
he  will  associate;  after  relationships  are  strongly  formed, 
however,  it  is  not  so  easy,  for  it  is  always  a  much  more 


18  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

simple  matter  to  evade  or  to  decline  an  association  than 
it  is  to  break  it  after  it  has  been  made.  Before  he 
enters  high  school  a  boy's  friends  have  not  always  been 
entirely  of  his  own  choosing.  They  have  been  deter- 
mined by  his  parents,  by  his  immediate  neighbors,  by  the 
friendships  which  his  father  and  mother  had  made  for  him 
and  with  him.  To  a  certain  extent,  until  he  shall  himself 
go  away  from  home,  this  will  continue  to  be  true,  but,  far 
more  than  he  has  ever  been  at  liberty  to  do  so  before,  he 
will,  when  he  enters  high  school,  be  left  very  much  to  his 
own  devices  in  the  choice  of  his  friends.  It  is  most  impor- 
tant that  he  choose  wisely,  for  upon  his  choice  depend  his 
habits,  his  ideals,  his  character.  If  his  friends  develop  into  ^ 
a  fast  lot,  and  smoke  and  swear  and  waste  their  time,  he 
will  be  more  than  likely  to  follow;  if  they  are  quiet  and  ; 
studious  and  clean  minded,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  adopt  the 
same  conservative  tactics.  A  boy,  as  well  as  a  man,  is 
known  by  the  friends  he  keeps,  and  can  with  the  greatest 
difficulty  follow  a  line  of  conduct  different  from  that  which 
these  same  friends  follow. 

"I  don't  have  to  do  what  they  do,"  a  boy  often  says 
when  warned  against  certain  careless  or  evil  companions, 
but  the  facts  usually  prove  quite  the  contrary,  and 
whether  he  wills  it  or  not,  he  soon  takes  up  the  practices 
that  his  friends  set  for  him. 

It  is  a  great  opportunity  which  is  offered  a  boy  who 
goes  to  high  school.  In  these  days,  however,  when  in 
most  communities  it  is  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  19 

for  boys  to  go,  the  privilege  is  not  infrequently  valued 
rather  lightly.  The  boy  goes,  not  from  any  serious  pur- 
pose on  his  own  part  or  any  special  desire  for  training, 
but  because  it  is  the  custom,  because  his  parents  have 
desired  it,  and  because  all  the  other  boys  in  his  class  are 
going.  Possibly  it  is  better  to  go  for  these  reasons  than  not 
to  go  at  all,  but  if  added  to  these  there  is  also  the  eagerness 
on  his  part  to  train  his  mind,  to  add  to  his  store  of  infor- 
mation, to  prepare  himself  better  for  the  work  which  he 
must  take  up  later  in  life,  and  especially  if  there  is  for 
him  some  interest,  some  Hne  of  study  which  he  very  much 
desires  to  carry  on,  his  chances  of  getting  somewhere 
will  be  materially  increased.  No  one  can  get  far  in  any 
line  of  work  without  interest.  Th-:;  work  we  do  without 
joy  in  the  doing  is  pretty  sure  to  be  badly  done. 

Intellectual  work  is  not  unlike  physical.  A  group  of 
laborers  is  engaged  upon  a  piece  of  work  near  my  office. 
I  can  look  out  of  my  window  and  see  them  as  they  gather 
in  the  morning.  Some  of  them  come  early  and  sit  on  the 
curb  and  smoke  or  talk  to  each  other;  others  come  up 
at  the  last  minute.  When  the  whistle  sounds  announc- 
ing the  hour  to  begin,  few  of  them  go  to  their  work  with 
any  enthusiasm  or  apparent  pleasure.  They  drag  them- 
selves to  their  feet  with  reluctance,  they  take  up  their 
tasks  with  indifference,  and  when  the  twelve  o'clock 
whistle  announces  quitting  time,  they  throw  down  their 
tools  with  a  rapidity  that  is  disheartening.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  they  accomplish  Uttle,  their  progress 


20 


THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 


in  their  trade  is  slow.    They  are  discontented,  dissatis- 
fied, inefficient  and  unhappy. 

If  a  boy  is  going  to  high  school,  he  should  go  with  a 
spirit  different  from  this.  He  is  having  a  rare  chance 
to  develop  his  mind,  to  strengthen  his  character,  to  widen 
his  chances  of  usefulness  and  success.  This  chance  should 
inspire  him  to  do  his  best,  to  meet  and  to  solve  his  prob- 
lems with  courage  and  manliness. 


4^> 


7 


.X. 


T 


/_-.> 


^) 


^■^^\,- 


THE  COURSE 

When  your  grandfather  went  to  high  school,  if  fortu- 
nately he  had  the  chance  to  do  so,  the  course  of  study 
open  to  him  was  a  pretty  rigid  one,  very  much  indeed 
like  an  intellectual  table  d'hote  at  which  he  had  little 
opportunity  to  pick  and  choose,  but  must  take  what  was 
set  before  him  and  ask  no  questions.  There  was  a  gener- 
ous helping  of  mathematics  with  Latin  and  probably, 
Greek,  to  form  the  heavy  part  of  the  intellectual  meal. 
Physics  and  chemistry  often  made  up  a  part  of  the  re- 
quirement, with  history  and  English  to  serve  as  dessert 
to  lighten  the  repast.  There  were  few  if  any  electives 
then,  and  little  questioning  on  the  part  of  the  students 
as  to  whether  or  not  what  they  were  taking  was  likely 
to  "do  them  any  good"  or  was  particularly  to  their 
individual  tastes;  they  took  their  studies  as  they  ate  the 
simple  nourishing  food  that  was  set  before  them  at  home 
by  grandmother,  in  the  beUef  that  their  elders  knew  best 
what  was  good  for  them. 

Now  everything  is  different.  The  program  of  study  in 
the  well-equipped  modern  high  school  carries  an  intel- 
lectual bill  of  fare  as  varied  and  as  bizarre  as  that  repre- 
sented by  the  a  la  carte  dining  service  of  a  first-class  hotel. 
The  boy  entering  high  school  today  has  so  varied  a  program 
set  before  him,  has  so  many  things  from  which  to  choose, 

21 


22  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

that  it  is  little  wonder  if  he  is  not  sometimes  confused  and 
at  loss  to  know  just  what  to  choose.  Unrestricted  elec- 
tion is  not  possible  in  any  high  school,  so  far  as  I  know, 
but  the  restrictions  are  so  lunited  that  the  actual  results 
amount  almost  to  that.  High  school  boys  have  so  great 
a  variety  put  before  them  that  they  often  become  over 
fastidious  and  finical  in  their  tastes  and  so  hard  to  please 
that  they  refuse  to  show  interest  in,  or  to  cultivate  an 
appetite  for,  anything.  A  dozen  different  subjects  of 
which  his  grandfather  would  scarcely  have  known  the 
names,  from  agronomy  to  pharmacy,  are  now  found  in 
many  a  high  school  boy's  program. 

Even  if  the  boy  is  sensible  enough  to  recognize  the 
difficulty  and  the  danger  he  is  in,  he  will  not  always  find 
it  easy  to  get  intelligent  advice.  There  is  a  wide  difference 
of  opinion  these  days  as  to  just  what  is  best  for  a  boy  to 
study.  There  are  those  who  think  he  ought  to  choose 
only  what  interests  him,  only  what  may  be  put  to  immedi- 
ate and  practical  use.  There  is  no  greater  educational 
fallacy  than  this  insistence  that  we  should  always  make 
a  student's  work  interesting,  and  that  if  he  can  see 
no  practical  end  in  what  he  is  studying,  there  is  no  log- 
ical reason  why  he  should  go  on  with  it.  He  should  study, 
the  argument  is,  only  such  subjects  as  he  finds  he  has 
special  fitness  and  liking  for.  The  lines  of  least  resist- 
ance are  the  lines  for  him  to  follow.  "Make  it  easy  or 
cut  it  out." 

A  young  fellow  will  not  always  get  a  great  deal  of  help 


THE  COURSE  23 

by  going  to  his  father  or  his  mother.  They  may  not  have 
had  a  high  school  experience  themselves,  and  even  if  they 
have  had,  things  are  done  very  differently  now  from  what 
they  were  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  educational  affairs  are 
managed  in  quite  another  way  than  when  your  father  was 
young.  Anyway  fathers  are  often  thought  old-fashioned 
and  tremendously  behind  the  times  by  their  young  sons, 
and  it  is  not  always  easy  for  boys  to  take  the  father's 
advice  even  if  the  fathers  are  willing  to  give  it.  Fathers, 
too,  fall  into  the  same  educational  jargon  that  they  hear 
about  them  without  always  thinking  seriously  on  the 
problems  of  education  as  they  are  presented  to  young  boys. 

Teachers,  it  is  true,  ought  to  be  able  to  give  dependable 
advice,  because  it  is  their  business  to  know  something 
definite  about  educational  matters,  but  too  many  teachers 
are  specialists,  or  think  they  are,  and  are  too  much  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  the  subject  which  they  themselves 
teach  to  be  able  to  give  unprejudiced  advice.  It  is  a  rare 
teacher  who  when  asked  will  advise  a  boy  against  taldng  a 
subject  which  he  himself  teaches.  As  a  result,  in  most 
cases,  the  boy  is  left  to  make  his  own  decision  and 
within  the  limits  of  his  possible  elections,  to  rely  upon 
his  own  judgment  as  to  what  he  shall  study. 

In  making  this  choice  he  is  pretty  likely  to  be  injQuenced 
by  popular  opinion,  by  what  some  of  the  other  fellows  are 
taking,  and  l)y  his  own  personal  tastes  and  tendencies. 
Few  people  would  work  if  circumstances  did  not  require 
it,  and  fewer  still  would  voluntarily  choose  to  do  disa- 


24  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

greeable  or  unpleasant  things,  and  a  young  boy  least  of 
all  is  likely  to  do  so.  Very  naturally,  then,  if  allowed  to 
determine  his  own  program,  he  picks  out  what  he  likes 
best,  not  stopping  to  inquire  whether  or  not  what  gives  i 
him  the  most  pleasure  is  likely  to  do  him  the  most 
good. 

"Why  did  you  drop  chemistry?"  I  asked  a  neighbor 
boy  in  high  school  not  long  ago. 

" I  didn't  care  for  it,"  was  his  reply,  "and  I  don't 
see  any  reason  in  studying  anything  I  don't  care  for, 
do  you?" 

I  really  did,  and  I  tried  to 'tell  him  that  every  one  has 
all  through  life,  every  day  usually,  to  do  many  things 
that  are  not  pleasing,  and  that  the  sooner  one  begins, 
the  easier  the  task  becomes.  _,^  t  ^.v-. 

He  shies,  often  at  what  he  considers  difficult.  If  he 
reasons  badly,  he  avoids,  as  far  as  possible,  mathematics 
and  chemistry  and  physics.  If  he  has  a  poor  verbal 
memory  he  passes  up  Latin  and  modern  languages  argu- 
ing when  questioned  on  the  subject,  that  he  can  get  just 
as  much  good  out  of  something  else  that  he  finds  more  to 
his  liking.  If  he  finds  spelling  difficult  or  the  composition 
of  themes  puzzling  he  dodges  such  work  as  well  as  he  can 
and  explains  his  course  of  action  by  saying  that  he  "never 
could  spell  or  write  a  good  theme,  anyway."  He  fails 
in  doing  so  to  recognize  the  fact  that  one  of  the  main 
purposes  of  education  is  to  help  him  to  do  more  easily 
these  and  other  things  which  he  may  find  hard  to  do.    A 


THE  COURSE       --o^    ^    T^         25 


/    $^ 


,* 


normal  mind  can  be  made  to  work  successfully  along  al- 
most any  line,  if  the  boy  to  whom  it  belongs  will  apply 
himself  persistently  to  the  difficult  subject.  There  is 
nothing  so  sure  in  any  sort  of  endeavor  to  bring  defeat 
as  the  admission  at  the  outset  that  defeat  is  very  probable, 
and  there  is  no  intellectual  joy  so  sweet  as  the  successful 
accomplishment  of  a  task  that  was  thought  difficult  or 
impossible.  The  boy  who  says  he  is  going  to  fail  seldom 
does  anything  else. 

Just  the  other  day  a  boy  was  telling  me,  with  the  greatest 
exultation  showing  in  his  face,  of  his  experience  with  what 
the  teacher  had  called  "the  hardest  problem  in  the  book." 
The  boy  did  not  find  mathematics  easy,  often  he  was 
satisfied  with  working  the  simpler  problem^  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  assignment  trusting  to  luck  that  he  would 
not  be  called  upon  to  explain  any  of  the  "stickers" 
when  it  came  to  the  recitation.  This  time,  however,  his 
ambition  was  stirred,  his  "spunk  was  up,"  he  said,  and 
he  detennined  he  would  work  that  problem  if  it  took  all 
night.  Well,  it  did  take  mighty  nearly  all  night,  but  he 
stuck  to  it,  and  got  it  right,  and  the  joy  of  mental  conquest 
was  a  satisfaction  and  an  inspiration  to  him  for  the  rest 
of  his  high  school  course.  So  is  it  to  every  boy  who  strug- 
gles. The  benefits  of  such  accomplishments,  too,  will 
not  end  with  a  boy's  graduation  from  high  school.  Forty 
years  afterwards  he  will  still  be  able  to  feel  the  self-  \ 
reliance  which  he  gained  through  his  boyish  conquest  of  i  j 
difficulty;  forty  years  afterwards  he  will  be  stronger  to 


il 


26  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

meet  unexpected  trials  by  having  overcome  this  mental 
hardship. 

"What  are  you  going  to  take  next  half  year?"  I  asked 
Donald  at  mid-year. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  rephed.  "Do  you  know  any  snap 
course?" 

The  snap,  whatever  it  is,  will  get  a  boy  nowht're  exr 
cepting  to  give  him  credits,  and  what  one  ought  to 
want  out  of  four  years  of  high  school  is  training  that 
will  make  one  happier  and-  more  able  to  think  and  that 
will  fit  one  better  to  do  the  hard  but  necessary  things 
of  life. 

Next  to  the  interesting  and  the  easy,  the  practical  is 
what  now  appeals  to  the  majority  of  boys.  There  is 
no  sort  of  bunkum  in  educational  matters  that  appeals 
now  so  strongly  to  the  public  as  that  which  is  presented 
with  the  label  "practical "  on  it.  It  is  Uke  the  old  "made 
in  Germany  "  which  used  so  to  appeal  to  us  when  we  found 
it  on  an  article  in  which  we  were  interested,  and  it  is 
about  as  cheap  and  worthless  in  its  significance.  Our 
high  school  courses  are  crammed  full  of  subjects  which 
are  supposed  to  be  eminently  practical  and  which  will 
assist  those  who  have  taken  them  almost  immediately 
^y.?ato  make  money  or  to  get  a  job  or  to  do  something.  Type- 
writing, stenography,  cooking,  dressmaking,  millinery, 
plumbing,  typesetting,  manual  training,  pharmacy,  busi- 
ness English  and  business  aritlimetic,  whatever  these 
last  two  subjects  may  be,  may  all  be  found  in  one  or  another 


THE  COURSE  27 

of  our  high  school  curricula,  and  they  appeal  very  strongly, 
some  of  them,  to  boys,  because  they  suggest  an  immediate 
use  and  application  of  knowledge. 

I  am  not  now  meaning  to  imply  that  many  of  them 
are  not  of  use;  in  fact  very  likely  each  is  of  some  benefit 
and  may  be  put  to  immediate  use  more  readily,  apparently 
at  least,  than  a  good  many  other  subjects  which  are  in 
the  high  school  course.  They  are  more  easily  learned, 
however;  they  require  less  brain  power,  and  they  are 
more  quickly  forgotten  than  are  those  subjects  that  re- 
quire concentration  of  mind  and  logical  reasoning. 

"Of  what  possible  use  could  Latin  be  to  me?"  George 
protested  the  other  day  when  his  father  was  advising 
him  to  include  it  in  his  high  school  course.  "I'm  not 
going  to  teach,  I'm  not  going  to  be  a  lawyer,  and  nobody 
talks  Latin  these  days." 

There  is  a  curious,  though  possibly  an  explainable, 
point  of  view  with  many  young  people  now-a-days  that 
only  the  teacher  or  the  lawyer  could  ever  find  any  use  for 
S3  dead  a  language  as  Latin — the  teacher  because  every- 
body expects  him  to  have  had  the  subject,  and  the  lawyer 
because  many  legal  terms  are  still  expressed  in  Latin, 
and  the  lawyer  is  supposed  to  know  how  to  translate 
them.  I  suppose  the  real  facts  are  that  neither  of  these 
men  needs  Latin  in  his  business  more  than  any  other  in- 
telligent or  educated  person  does. 

I  am  no  special  advocate  of  foreign  languages,  and 
especially  of  dead  languages,  and  have  no  special  fluency 

f 


28  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

either  in  reading  or  speaking  any  one.  I  have  had  some 
training  in  three  languages  besides  my  native  tongue, 
•but  if  I  am  in  any  degree  able  to  estimate  the  relative 
benefits  to  me  of  the  various  subjects  which  I  pursued 
preparatory  to  entering  college  I  have  no  hesitancy  in 
saying  that  my  study  of  Latin  meant  more  to  me  than 
anything  else  I  did  and  means  more  to  me  today.  His- 
tory bored  me,  so  I  worked  very  little  at  it;  mathematics 
required  little  study  on  my  part,  so  though  I  received 
high  grades  in  it  I  really  derived  little  discipline  from  it, 
science  I  liked,  but  it  did  not  require  any  strenuous  effort 
to  get  by  the  examinations.  Latin  was  to  me  the  most 
difficult  of  all,  I  toiled  at  it;  I  dug  out  laboriously  each 
word  and  phrase  and  sentence;  I  committed  my  declen- 
sions and  my  paradigms  with  painful  slowness,  but  I  held 
myself  to  the  task,  and  I  accomplished  it  with  rather 
more  than  average  success. 

I  can  read  today,  after  thirty  years,  with  some  fluency 
every  Latin  text  I  ever  studied.  I  got  more  idea  of 
concentration  and  accuracy  and  coordination  out  of  the 
subject  than  from  anything  else.  It  was  the  one  thing 
that  gave  me  mental  discipline;  it  was  the  thing  that 
required  of  me  most  serious  study.  Perhaps  it  might 
not  accomplish  the  same  result  for  others;  perhaps  for 
you  that  result  would  be  brought  about  through  some 
other  means;  but  for  me,  it  was  the  Latin  that  did  it, 
so  when  I  hear  a  boy  say,  "What  possible  good  could 
Latin  do  me?  "  I  tell  him  my  story,  and  I  try  to  show  him 


THE  COURSE  29 

that  it  will  do  for  him  what  it  did  for  me  if  he  will  go  at  it 
with  a  determination  to  do  it  well. 

I  once  heard  a  practical  man,  one  of  the  leading 
engineers  of  the  country  in  fact,  and  a  man  trained  at 
a  well-known  technical  school  in  New  England,  make 
the  statement  that  if  he  were  given  the  privilege  of 
going  to  school  or  college  again  he  would  never  elect 
anything  that  was  considered  practical.  What_he  really  u^^Y^^^t 
meant,  he  explained,  was  that  as  he  saw  education  it  is 
not  for  immediate  and  practical  use  so  much  as  for  train- 
ing and  discipline  of  the  mind,  for  the  development  of 
ideals,  for  the  setting  of  standards.  High  school  is  not 
so  much  to  give  a  boy  specific  information  as  it  is  so  to 
prepare  him  to  get  that  information  for  himself  if  he  ever 
needs  it,  and  needing  it  that  he  may  have  a  brain  suffi- 
ciently well  trained  intelligently  to  use  the  information 
when  he  gets  it. 

Of  course  it  would  be  quite  unwise  and  even  untrue 
to  assert  that  the  practical  things  one  finds  in  a  high  school 
course  do  not  in  a  measure  conduce  to  discipline  and 
training  of  the  mind.  Many  of  them  are  both  practical 
and  disciplinary,  but  as  a  rule  the  so-called  practical 
subjects  that  are  more  and  more  creeping  into  the  high 
school  course  and  that  make  the  strongest  appeal  to 
the  boy  and  quite  as  often  to  his  parents,  have  little  disci- 
plinary value,  have  less  cultural  value,  and  are  seldom 
used  practically  after  the  boy  leaves  high  school.  The 
boy  who  is  fed-up  on  these  subjects  often  has  a  hard 


30  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

time  when  he  is  called  upon  to  work  out  problems  which 
require  logical  and  consistent  thinking. 

Sometimes,  too,  a  boy  is  tempted  to  "specialize"  in 
electing  his  course  in  high  school.  He  makes  up  his  mind 
to  prepare  for  a  definite  line  of  work,  and  he  begins  early 
to  load  up  his  course  with  all  that  is  offered  in  a  single 
department  of  work.  This  is  usually  an  unwise  thing 
to  do.  It  gives  a  one-sided  training,  it  develops  a  rather 
badly  balanced  mind.  The  boy  who  runs  to  languages, 
or  to  commercial  subjects,  or  to  drawing  and  manual 
training  because  he  likes  these  subjects,  or  because  he 
thinks  they  will  better  prepare  him  for  a  specific  sort  of 
work,  even  though  he  is  allowed  to  graduate  from  high 
school  on  such  a  specialized  program,  has  missed  the  vital 
purpose  of  a  high  school  course.  After  he  has  been  taught 
to  think,  after  he  has  laid  a  broad  foundation,  a  boy  can 
specialize  to  much  better  advantage  in  anything  he  likes. 

So  far  I  have  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  condemning 
certain  practices  followed  in  choosing  a  course  in  high 
school,  without  giving  much  suggestion  as  to  what  is 
best  to  do.  It  is  a  foolish  man,  however,  who  spends 
his  energies  entirely  in  condemning  and  tearing  down  and 
who  does  not  suggest  something  definite  and  constructive. 

There  is  a  certain  necessary  preparation  which  every 
boy  should  get  in  high  school  if  he  intends  to  go  to  college 
or  if  he  is  looking  forward  to  a  specific  sort  of  work.  The 
college  entrance  requirements  are  now  about  as  flexible 
as  they  are  likely  to  be  made  for  a  while,  and  they  are 


THE  COURSE  31 

about  as  liberal  as  any  high  school  course  ought  to  be, 
and  yet,  if  one  is  to  enter  college,  there  are  a  few  things 
which  are  essential  in  all  cases,  and  in  technical  colleges 
there  are  additional  requirements.  For  instance  one  can 
not  enter  any  course  in  engineering  without  having  a 
fairly  thorough  foundation  in  mathematics  and  physics. 
At  least  a  year  and  a  half  of  algebra  are  required  with  a  ^^""^ 
year  of  plane  geometry  and  a  half  year  of  solid  geometry.  ^ 
Some  institutions  require  in  addition  advanced  algebra 
and  trigonometry.  Every  high  school  principal  is  ac- 
quainted with  this  fact  and  ought  to  make  it  evident  to 
his  students,  though  he  does  not  always  do  so.  If  the  boy 
has  the  foresight  to  inquire  he  will  undoubtedly  get  the 
information  he  desires,  but  every  year  I  find  fellows  who 
wish  to  enter  a  course  in  college  for  which  they  do  not 
have  the  requirements,  and  these  requirements,  had  they 
known  them,  they  might  very  easily  have  met. 

The  man  who  expects  later  in  college  to  go  on  with 
English  or  chemistry  or  foreign  language  should  at  least 
find  out  the  minimum  requirements  in  these  subjects, 
for  entrance  to  college,  and  should  meet  them,  so  that 
he  may  not  later  be  handicapped  on  account  of  not  hav- 
ing done  the  thing  which  he  could  easily  have  accomplished. 

There  are  a  great  many  people  who  maintain  that  there 
is  a  vast  difference  between  preparing  for  college  and  /    ,     , 
preparing    for    life.      These    people    hold    that    because    ^*""^^ 
one  does  not  expect  to  enter  college  after  he  is  through 
with  high  school,  he  is  therefore  excusable  if  he  omits  from 


32  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

his  course  such  subjects  as  do  not  appeal  to  him  either 
as  interesting  or  as  practical.  There  is  in  their  arguments 
the  mference  that  college  entrance  requirements  are  un- 
reasonable or  freakish,  or  that  they  do  not  furnish  a 
young  fellow  with  the  training  that  will  be  of  any  material 
value,  or  at  least  of  the  greatest  value  to  him,  should  he 
not  go  to  college.  I  believe  that  quite  the  contrary  is  true, 
and  that  the  course  prescribed  for  entrance  to  college  is  • 
on  the  whole  as  good  a  course  as  a  boy  can  select  no  matter 
what  he  intends  doing.  Such  a  course  will  teach  him 
logical  thinking,  and  the  ability  to  think  is  quite  as  nec- 
essary out  of  college  as  in  it;  whatever  one  undertakes  and 
carries  through  that  causes  him  to  think  is  of  the  greatest 
advantage  to  him  in  any  later  enterprise.  Since  no 
boy  is  likely  while  he  is  in  high  school  absolutely  to 
^^^  know  that  he  will  or  will  not  go  to  college,  the  safest  plan 
would  seem  to  be  so  to  choose  his  course  in  high  school 
that  he  may  meet  the  college  entrance  requirements 
should  he  ever  want  to  do  so. 

Every  boy  should  undertake  something  in  high  school 
that  he  finds  hard  to  do,  something  that  will  make  hun 
bring  his  books  home  at  night  and  do  a  little  studying  after 
school  hours.  There  is  always  a  question  about  the  train- 
ing the  boy  is  getting  who  never  has  to  do  any  studying 
at  home,  who  never  finds  anything  that  causes  him  to 
dig,  who  does  not  know  what  it  means  to  work  his  brain 
at  times  as  hard  as  it  is  capable  of  working.  If  you  will 
ask  any  man,  young  or  old,  out  of  what  experience,  mental 


^JJ 


-f    -^    ^  ^^^  THE  COURSE  33 

y\j      or  physical,  he  has  received  the  most  valuable  training 

!  he  will  almost  invariably  answer  that  it  was  from  the 

experience  which  forced  him  to  work  the  hardest.     It  is 

through  vigorous  and  regular  exercise  that  any  muscle 

or  any  faculty  is  developed. 

I  knew  "Mike"  Mason  before  he  entered  high  school; 
and  "Mike"  developed  later  into  the  best  two-miler  the 
Western  Conference  has  ever  had.  He  had  no  special 
talents  athletically  at  the  outset,  unless  one  should  admit 
that  persistence  and  willingness  to  work  hard  and  to 
sacrifice  whenever  it  is  necessary  are  special  talents.  Mike 
wanted  to  be  a  good  runner,  and  he  was  willing  to  pay 
the  price.  He  trained  regularly  all  through  his  high  school 
course;  he  worked  hard  when  other  boys,  some  of  them 
as  good  prospects  as  he,  perhaps,  had  long  ago  given  up 
the  contest  and  had  gone  over  to  join  the  rooters  on  the 
bleachers;  he  worked  hard  when  hard  work  was  far  from 
pleasant;  he  gave  up  everything  that  seemed  to  interfere 
with  his  prospects,  but  when  he  was  ready  for  college  he 
was  beginning  to  be  counted  as  one  of  the  coming  athletes 
of  the  state,  and  before  he  graduated  he  was  known  as  the 
best  runner  of  the  middle  west.  And  it  was  largely  through 
hard  work,  through  doing  his  best,  through  his  willing- 
ness constantly  to  tackle  something  hard  that  Mike 
trained  his  muscles  and  developed  his  mind,  and  out- 
stripped his  competitors  in  the  race. 

Mr.  Frank  A.  Vanderlip,  of  New  York,  in  a  recent 
address  to  young  people  said,  "If  you  are  starting  out 


-H- 


34  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY  , , 

to  make  a  success  in  life,  don't  choose  the  job  that  offers 
you  the  easiest  time  or  the  most  money.  Choose  rather 
the  one  that  requires  the  hardest  work  and  furnishes 
the  greatest  opportunity  for  your  development."  Now 
a  boy  trains  his  mind  as  he  learns  a  profession  or  trains 
his  muscles,  by  putting  it  to  the  test  and  seeing  what 
it  can  regularly  do  when  it  is  pushed.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  I  should  advise  a  boy,  no  matter  what  his  regular 
curriculum  in  the  high  school  may  be,  always  to  select 
some  course  that  will  give  his  mind  a  good  work  out. 
I  heard  an  architect  say  once  that  to  be  worth  much 
in  his  profession  an  architect  had  to  be  able  to  do  his  work 
rapidly  and  to  do  it  well.  There  are  a  great  many  people, 
he  alleged,  who  can  turn  out  a  lot  of  work  in  a  short  time, 
but  it  proves  inaccurate  or  worthless;  there  are  a  great 
many  others  whose  work  is  beautifully  and  carefully 
done,  but  it  takes  them  all  summer  to  get  anything  ac- 
complished. Neither  sort  of  person  will  get  far  in  his 
profession.  Out  of  his  high  school  course  every  boy  should 
learn  concentration — that  is  the  ability  to  center  the 
mind  on  a  definite  piece  of  work  and  to  bring  it  to  com- 
pletion within  a  definite  and  reasonable  time.  Some 
boys  learn  this  trick  more  easily  than  others,  but  it  is 
quite  possible  for  every  boy  so  to  acquire  control  of  his 
mind  that  it  will  accomplish  what  he  wants  it  to  do  within 
the  time  at  his  disposal.  Possibly  the  best  way  to  bring 
this  about  is  through  setting  for  himself  mental  "stunts" 
and  trying  to  see  in  how  short  a  time  these  may  be  satis- 


THE  COURSE  35 

factorily  accomplished,  just  as  when  we  were  boys  we 
used  to  set  for  ourselves  physical  tasks. 

"If  you  will  get  the  potatoes  hoed  by  three  o'clock," 
mother  used  to  say  to  us  boys,  "you  can  go  fishing  for 
the  rest  of  the  afternoon." 

How  quickly  conversation  and  youthful  horseplay 
stopped;  the  weeds  fell  before  our  devastating  hoes  like 
the  Huns  before  the  marines.  We  plied  our  task  with 
a  vigor  and  a  persistency  that  brought  it  to  a  glorious 
finish  with  time  to  spare  before  three  o'clock. 

It  is  so  that  a  boy  ought  to  learn  to  drive  his  mind, 
yet  few  young  fellows  come  to  college  or  go  out  from  high  Ji  _^<i 
school  into  life  with  much  idea  of  mental  concentration  . 
or  much  training  in  it.  Their  minds  have  a  tendency  to 
jump  from  one  thing  to  another  with  the  skill  of  an  acrobat. 
They  find  it  difficult  to  concentrate  their  attention  on 
a  single  subject  for  fifteen  minutes,  and,  both  in  high 
school  and  college,  they  are  handicapped  by  this  lack  of 
mental  control. 

The  best  student  I  have  ever  known  was  so  not  so  much 
from  superior  quality  or  alertness  of  mind  as  from  his 
unusual  ability  to  concentrate  and  hold  his  attention 
on  what  he  was  doing.  He  could  get  more  done  in  an 
hour  than  most  fellows  could  accomplish  in  two.  When  s 
he  settled  to  his  books  nothing  moved  him  or  diverted  /  "^ 
his  attention.  He  would  sit  for  an  hour  never  stirring 
a  muscle  excepting  as  he  had  to  turn  the  pages  of  the  book    \  h 

he  was  reading.    When  he  was  at  work  he  neither  spoke 

•^ 


\    '"- 


36  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

to  his  companions  nor  seemed  to  take  any  account  of 
what  they  are  doing  or  saying.  This  is  a  quaUty  of 
mind  which  every  boy  would  do  well  to  cultivate,  and  it 
is  a  quahty  which  can  be  developed  through  effort  and 
practice. 

A  boy  should  get  a  certain  breadth  of  view  from  his 
high  school  course.  It  should  take  him  to  other  coun- 
tries than  his  own  and  to  other  worlds.  It  should  interest 
him  in  the  great  people  and  the  great  movements  of 
thought  of  the  world,  and  should  stimulate  in  him  a  desire 
to  read  and  to  know  more  and  to  see  more  of  what  the 
world  contains.  It  should  be  for  him  the  beginning  and 
not  the  end  of  an  interest  in  history  and  science,  and  litera- 
ture; in  inventions  and  discoveries,  and  manufactures.  If 
it  is  to  do  this,  the  boy  must  have  shown  interest  in  more 
than  one  subject  in  the  high  school;  he  must  have  done 
more  than  merely  pass  in  the  various  subjects  which  he  has 
elected;  he  must  be  taken  out  of  his  own  narrow  environ- 
ment, his  interest  and  his  breadth  of  view  must  be  broad- 
ened, and  he  must  see  life  as  a  different  and  a  better 
thing  than  it  was  before  he  took  up  a  high  school  course. 

A  boy  should  get  from  his  high  school  course  better 
taste,  better  manners,  more  interest  in  poetry  and  music 
and  art  and  whatever  is  idealistic  and  beautiful.  He 
should  be  less  selfish  than  when  he  began  his  course  of 
study,  more  interested  in  other  people,  more  ambitious. 

Besides  choosing  subjects  that  will  require  hard  work, 
that  will  develop  concentration,  broaden  his  view  and 


THE  COURSE  37 

develop  his  taste  and  his  ideals,  every  boy  should  regu- 
larly have  something  in  his  course  of  study  that  he  likes. 
Doing  what  one  likes  may  not  always  be  so  profitable 
but  it  is  more  interesting  than  doing  the  difficult.  Life, 
and  especially  high  school  life,  should  not  be  all  drudgery 
or  it  will  fail  of  its  main  purpose  Every  day's  work 
should  be  looked  forward  to  with  interest  and  pleasure,  ,./.^'^ 
and  this  can  be  only  when  the  program  of  studies  is  in 
some  part  at  least  pleasing  to  the  boy.  We  have  all  eaten 
the  carrots  or  the  common  bread  and  butter  we  had  no 
taste  for  in  order  that  we  might  the  sooner  get  at  the 
dessert  which  we  so  much  more  enjoyed,  and  we  shall 
often  find  the  same  condition  existing  in  the  boy's  atti- 
tude toward  his  high  school  course.  He  will  stand  a 
certain  amount  of  unpleasant  work  provided  there  is 
mixed  up  with  it  something  he  enjoys.  '-'  ' 

The  question  of  carrying  an  over-schedule  often  comes 
up.  Some  boys  say  that  they  always  do  their  best 
work  when  they  are  carrying  the  heaviest  intellectual 
load.  This  means  that  only  when  they  are  under  pressure, 
when  they  are  being  urged  on  by  surrounding  conditions  ^ 

do  they  develop  concentration  and  conservation  of  their 
time.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  for  some  temperaments  ^  v* 
this  sort  of  goading  is  most  conducive  to  good  work.  The 
less  some  boys  have  to  do,  the  less  they  will  do,  and  vice 
versa.  Simons  was  one  of  that  sort.  When  he  carried 
a  light  schedule  he  loafed  and  cut  class  and  fooled  away 
his  time  generally.     It  was  only  when  his  teacher  told 


i 


38  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

him  that  he  had  no  shadow  of  a  chance  to  pass  that  he 
got  down  to  business.  When  he  was  metaphorically- 
pushed  against  the  wall  with  some  one  at  his  throat,  he 
roused  himself  and  fought  for  his  life,  and  he  usually 
won  the  contest.  He  was  like  a  man  who  really  never 
makes  an  effort  to  swim  until  he  thinks  himself  drowning. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  a  normal  schedule  is 
best.  There  is  little  to  be  gained  from  finishing  high 
school  ahead  of  one's  class.    It  is  pretty  hard  if  not  practi-  r.U 

cally  impossible  to  develop  in  a  boy  of  sixteen  the  j  udgment 
and  the  power  of  thinking  that  we  expect  him  to  have 
at  eighteen.  The  time  element  counts  more  than  we 
are  often  willing  to  admit,  and  the  high  school  course 
finished  in  three  years  is  quite  often  worth  no  more 
than  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  same  course  pursued 
normally  and  completed  in  four  years.  If  a  boy  has  been 
unlucky,  if  he  is  behind  his  class,  then  it  is  sometimes  ai^ 
advantage  for  him  to  speed  up  by  carrying  more  than 
the  normal  amount.  In  most  cases,  however,  it  is  a 
mistake  for  him  to  do  so.  A  normal  schedule  gives  a  boy 
time  to  think,  time  to  read,  time  to  do  his  work  well.  It 
is  always  better  to  do  a  moderate  amount  of  work  with 
credit  than  to  skim  indifferently  through  twice  as  much. 
The  boy  who  just  gets  by  misses  the  most  of  the  good 
that  he  might  get  out  of  his  course. 

The  high  school  course  for  a  very  large  number  of  boys 
is  the  end  of  their  formal  educational  training;  they  go 
no  further  excepting  as  they  acquire  training  from  the 


.y 


THE  COURSE  39 

practical  experiences  of  business  or  industrial  life.  A  boy 
should  carry  away  from  high  school  then,  someihing  more 
than  a  diploma  inscribed  with  a  list  of  the  subjects  he 
has  pursued.  He  should  have  grounded  himself  in  the  ele- 
ments of  a  number  of  subjects,  he  should  have  learned 
at  least  the  beginnings  of  logical  thinking  and  be  ready 
to  solve  whatever  problem  is  put  to  him,  he  should 
have  some  knowledge  of  literature,  he  should  know 
how  to  write  a  correct  sentence,  and  he  should  not  count 
either  reading  or  writing  a  task  but  rather  a  pleasure. 
His  high  school  course  should  have  prepared  him  for 
entrance  to  college,  or,  if  that  privilege  is  denied  him,  it 
should  have  given  him  a  helpful  and  satisfactory  training 
for  entering  upon  the  practical  duties  of  life. 


W^ 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS 

Kenneth,  my  next  door  neighbor,  who  is  a  senior  in 
high  school,  has  a  habit  of  dropping  in  on  me  every  few 
days  to  talk  things  over.  He  is  a  healthy  normal  young 
fellow  of  seventeen  who  generally  gets  on  well  with  his 
teachers;  whose  work  is  being  creditably  done  if  his  final 
grades  are  any  indication  of  success,  and  who  has  as  little 
fault  to  find  with  the  world  as  the  average  boy  of  his  age 
who  has  no  responsibilities  and  who  has  never  made  sac- 
rifices. 

We  discuss  all  sorts  of  topics,  from  the  probable  fu- 
ture of  the  Bolsheviki  to  the  latest  bill  at  the  Orpheum, 
but  I  am  rather  interested  to  notice  that  unless  I  drag 
in  the  topic  myself  he  seldom  has  anything  to  say  of  his 
studies.  Physics,  Vergil,  Shakspere,  and  history  engage 
his  thoughts,  or  are  supposed  to  do  so,  five  days  in  the 
week,  but  he  seldom  of  his  own  volition  makes  these  the 
topic  of  conversation,  unless  it  be  to  rail  against  one  or 
the  other  of  them.  He  talks  freely  of  the  football  team,  of 
his  own  accomplishments  and  possibilities  as  a  member 
of  it,  and  of  the  determination  of  the  eleven  to  clean  up 
Springfield  and  win  a  championship.  He  is  interested 
slightly  in  the  fortunes  of  the  high  school  debating  team, 
although  debate  to  him  is  about  as  manly  a  sport  as  knit- 
ting for  the  soldiers.    He  dilates  at  length  on  the  success  of 

40 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  41 

the  last  high  school  dance,  and  when  I  ask  him  sympathet- 
ically about  Clara,  I  know  that  I  have  opened  up  a  topic 
that  can  not  be  anything  like  adequately  discussed  at  one 
sitting.  The  incidental  things  connected  with  his  high 
school  life  seem  to  him  the  most  interesting  and  the  most 
vital.  He  gives  considerable  time  and  thought  to  the 
"other  things"  but,  outside  of  class  at  least,  none  to  his 
studies. 

I  am  convinced  that  he  is  not  unique  in  this  respect.  Al- 
though I  have  no  boys  of  my  own,  I  have  frequently  had 
them  in  my  household.  I  have  for  some  time,  also,  acted 
as  guardian  to  two  young  fellows  who  are  in  a  western 
academy  of  standing,  and  from  them  I  receive  weekly 
letters,  usually  written  with  the  ostensible  purpose  of 
giving  me  information  with  regard  to  the  intellectual,  and 
physical  progress  of  the  writers,  but  actually  to  offer  an 
opportunity  to  ask  that  their  regular  allowances  be  in- 
creased or  at  least  not  delayed  in  transit.  In  these  letters 
I  get  no  discussion  of  studies,  and  seldom  any  reference 
to  them.  Were  it  not  for  the  friendly  communications  of 
the  principal,  and  the  regular  bills  for  school  supplies 
which  I  receive,  I  should  have  no  knowledge,  even,  of  what 
subjects,  the  boys  are  pursuing.  Their  letters  are  made 
up  chiefly  of  optimistic  predictions  as  to  their  athletic 
successes,  of  accounts  of  escapades  (harmless  of  course, 
and  quite  within  the  regulations  of  the  school),  of  dra- 
matics, and  of  anticipated  pleasures  at  social  functions 
with  the  Ferry  Hall  girls.    Even  the  attaining  of  a  high 


42  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

grade,  which  is  a  rare  enough  occurrence,  may  not  be  men- 
tioned at  all.  At  Christmas  or  Easter  time  when  they 
visit  me,  I  find  that  the  dullest  topic  of  conversation 
which  I  can  introduce  is  studies. 

I  am  not  suggesting  that  this  is  out  of  the  normal;  it 
is,  perhaps,  quite  in  accord  with  the  principle  that  the 
thing  which  touches  us  most  deeply  and  which  is  closest 
to  our  hearts  we  are  sometimes  least  likely  to  speak 
about.  Possibly  the  high  school  boy  considers  it  "shop" 
and  thinks  that  he  gets  enough  of  it  in  the  regular  daily 
routine,  and  had  best  forget  it  when  away  from  it.  Pos- 
sibly there  is  a  certain  feeling  that  one  who  talks  about  his 
studies  is  likely  to  be  thought  a  grind,  and  however  credit- 
able it  may  be  to  work  like  a  Trojan  at  football  or  track  or 
baseball  or  in  getting  ready  for  a  class  dance,  it  has  not  yet 
become  so  generally  popular  through  regular  persistent 
effort  to  excel  at  one's  studies.  Why,  I  have  never  known. 
If  one  excels  in  his  studies,  it  is  in  the  minds  of  most  boys 
creditable  only  if  one  does  so  without  hard  work,  and  it  is 
not  a  thing  to  boast  about  like  breaking  the  school  record 
in  the  quarter  mile. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  however,  a  boy's  studies  con- 
stitute his  business  during  the  four  years  he  is  in  high 
school.  They  are  the  main  thing.  They  ought  to  have 
his  best  effort  and  his  best  thought.  Father  thinks  so; 
most  of  the  neighbors  feel  that  way;  his  teachers  have  no 
doubt  of  it.  No  matter  how  good  an  appearance  you  make 
at  the  Junior  dance,  no  matter  how  widely  advertised  you 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  43 

are  as  a  pole  vaulter  or  how  enchantingly  you  warble  on  the 

Glee  Club,  if  you  do  not  carry  your  work  creditably  at  the 

end  of  the  semester,  you  are  a  failure  so  far  as  high  school 

is  concerned.    It  isn't  enough  that  you  make  the  debating^   L-'v-i*. 

team  or  are  elected  class  president  or  are  known  as  the 

most  popular  boy  in  school;  it's  the  studies  that  count. ^ 

Too  many  boys  go  to  high  school  without  much  definite 
purpose.    They  expect  to  go  to  college,  and  high  school 
is  part  of  the  necessary  routine  for  the  accomplishment 
of  that  result.    All  the  other  fellows  are  going,  and  it  is 
easier  to  go  than  not  to  do  so.    They  would  rather  con- 
tinue going  to  school,  as  one  boy  told  me,  than  go  to  work; 
and  so  it  goes.    If  they  were  asked  what  their  reasons  are — 
if  any  boy  who  is  reading  this  essay  were  to  ask  himself — 
the  answer  would  in  all  probability  be  that  they  "wanted 
an  education, "  whatever  that  may  mean.     I  am  not  sure 
that  with  all  the  experience  I  have  had  and  with  all  the 
definitions  I  have  read,  I  could  myself  give  an  adequate 
explanation  of  what  education  really  means,  but  I  am    » 
sure  that  it  means  in  some  degree  training  of  the  mind,  and  y''^'^^ 
that  such  training  comes  through  application  and  regular\ 
rigid  exercise  of  the  brain,  through  the  accomplishing  of  \ 
mental  tasks  that  are  not  easy  and  not  always  pleasant^ 
Every  young  boy  knows  that  if  he  expects  to  amount  to 
anything  as  an  athlete  he  must  train  regularly  and  persist- 
ently, that  he  must  deny  himself  many  things  which  he 
would  otherwise  enjoy,  and  that  he  must  not  only  con- 
stantly do  his  best,  but  that  he  must  be  striving  all  the 

0^ 


coJ 


44  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

time  to  make  his  best  better.  It  is  with  some  such  spirit 
as  this  that  a  boy  should  go  at  his  studies.  He  will  never 
do  very  well  unless  he  learns  concentrated  hard  work.  He 
will  never  increase  his  ability  to  think  as  he  should  un- 
less he  tries  to  do  well  a  good  many  things  he  doesn't  like 
to  do. 

If  possible,  have  an  object  in  view.  Set  some  intellec- 
tual goal  for  yourself,  and  do  not  be  satisfied  until  you 
have  reached  that  point  or  gone  beyond  it.  You  will 
find,  usually,  that  you  can  attain  success  more  easily  in 
some  directions  than  in  others.  Do  not  be  satisfied  to  be 
commonplace  or  merely  to  pass,  but  make  up  your  mind 
that  in  some  line  or  other  you  are  going  to  be  as  good  as 
the  best  at  least,  for  your  success  in  any  one  line  of  en- 
deavor will  always  give  you  more  likelihood  of  success  in 
anything  else  which  you  may  undertake.  The  boy  who\  ''-^^ 
gets  away  creditably  with  a  difficult  course  in  mathemat-  [^-u^^l/I 
ics  or  with  an  examination  in  Vergil  which  he  finds  dis- 
tasteful, will  be  so  much  the  better  able  through  self- 
confidence  and  persistence  to  win  the  girl  of  his  choice  -or 
to  make  a  creditable  record  at  track.  As  you  do  well  the 
intellectual  tasks  which  are  set  for  you  today,  you  will 
accomplish  more  easily  and  more  accurately  the  duties 
which  are  laid  upon  you  twenty  years  from  now,  no  matter 
what  these  duties  may  be. 

By  far  the  largest  percentage  of  poor  work  or  of  failures 
in  high  school  comes  not  from  the  fact  that  boys  are  stu- 
pid or  badly  prepared  in  the  elementary  schools,  or  be- 


r 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  45 

cause  the  amount  of  work  they  are  asked  to  do  is  unreason- 
able or  beyond  their  grasp,  but  because  they  do  not  do 
their  work  seriously  or  thoroughly  at  first;  they  have  no 
well-organized  plan  of  study;  they  are  procrastinating,  and 
wake  up  to  the  fact  too  late,  that  their  studies  are  a  real 
business  to  which  they  should  have  been  giving  regular 
attention  from  the  beginning.  Jones  told  me  only  yester- 
day that  if  he  had  learned  his  conjugations  and  his  declen- 
sions carefully  and  thoroughly  when  he  began  his  high 
school  study  of  Latin,  he  would  have  been  saved  years  of 
uncertain  floundering  through  the  classics.  If  you  would 
give  more  careful  attention  to  elementary  algebra,  you 
would  not  have  heart  failure  later  when  you  take  the 
required  courses  in  college  mathematics.  If  boys  took 
their  work  as  seriously  in  September  as  they  do  in  Jan- 
uary or  immediately  before  the  final  examinations  there 
would  be  a  great  many  more  honor  students  than  failures. 

As  a  rule  the  task  set  for  the  average  high  school  student 
is  a  very  moderate  one,  and  the  amount  and  the  character 
of  the  work  required  quite  within  the  range  of  his  ability. 
I  have  known  a  great  many  high  school  boys,  but  I  have 
known  few  whose  mental  equipment  was  not  adequate  to 
the  accomplishment  of  the  work  they  had  elected  to  do  if 
they  had  gone  at  it  in  the  right  way  when  it  was  as- 
signed.   The  number  of  "boneheads"  is  pretty  limited. 

Have  a  regular  time  for  study.  Of  course  I  appreciate 
the  fact  that  most  high  schools  have  "study  periods" 
between  recitations  and  that  a  good  many  boys  depend 


46  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

upon  these  to  furnish  adequate  time  for  preparation,  or  if 
this  should  prove  inadequate  there  is  always  the  chance 
of  studying  ahead  in  class  and  being  ready  to  recite  when 
the  teacher  calls  upon  you,  but  this  method  is  either  in- 
adequate or  a  subterfuge  and  will  not  get  you  anywhere. 

"John  is  so  quick  at  his  books,"  his  fond  mother  tells 
me,  "he  never  has  to  study."  But  I  know  John  is  com- 
ing up  against  a  great  surprise  one  of  these  days,  for  the 
boy  who  expects  to  get  what  he  should  out  of  his  studies, 
ought  to  have  at  least  a  little  regular  time  for  hard  study 
at  home  every  day.  The  boy  who  never  needs  to  open  a 
book  at  home  may  be  a  bright  boy,  but  he  will  seldom  de- 
velop into  a  well-trained  man;  he  is  pretty  sure  to  prove 
commonplace. 
y  Learn  to  do  things  within  the  time  assigned  to  you. 
If  there  are  problems  to  be  handed  in  on  Monday,  do 
not  put  off  solving  them  until  the  last  minute  and  then 
have  to  give  an  excuse  because  you  did  not  have  time 
enough  to  finish  them.  If  your  theme  is  due  on  Thursday 
go  at  it  early  enough  to  get  it  done  by  that  time.  The 
boy  who  waits  for  an  inspiration  or  who  thinks  it  will 
be  easier  for  him  to  write  tomorrow  than  it  is  tonight, 
is  more  than  likely  to  be  fooled.  No  one  but  a  poet 
ever  waits  for  an  inspiration,  and  the  fellow  who  gfets 
into  the  habit  of  delaying  the  doing  of  his  work  until  he 
feels  like  it,  soon  finds  that  his  eagerness  for  work  con- 
stantly decreases,  while  the  boy  who  goes  at  his  work 
and  gets  it  done  in  time  no  matter  how  he  feels  about  it, 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  47 

discovers  before  long  that  he  can  work  whenever  he  wants 
to  do  so.  No  man  who  has  regular  routine  work  to  do 
can  allow  it  to  be  a  matter  of  inspiration  or  feeling.  One 
of  the  main  things  for  which  brains  are  trained  is  that 
they  may  be  made  to  work  easily  whenever  the  necessity 
arises. 

Perhaps  the  reason  why  boys  court  delay  in  the  ac- 
complishment of  assigned  work  is  because  there  is  so 
much  time  in  which  it  may  be  done,  and  the  task  set 
for  tomorrow  seems  so  much  easier  of  accomplishment 
than  that  which  confronts  us  today;  but  work  always 
grows  more  difficult  as  we  allow  it  to  pile  up,  and  one 
is  not,  in  general,  likely  to  have  more  time  tomorrow  than 
he  has  today. 

Learn  to  depend  upon  your  own  efforts  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  your  work.  I  know  that  there  is  a 
certain  comradeship  developed  between  two  boys  who 
get  their  work  together,  and  it  is  sometimes  a  tremendous 
timesaver,  but  it  is  very  seldom  best.  If  the  result  of 
study  were  accomplished  when  we  got  the  answer  to  the 
problem,  all  that  would  sometimes  be  necessary  would 
be  to  turn  to  the  back  of  the  book.  The  boy  who  works 
out  his  own  problems,  as  he  will  usually  have  to  do  later 
in  life,  develops  self-reliance,  learns  to  trust  his  own 
judgment,  gets  the  habit  of  standing  on  his  own  feet, 
and  is  the  more  likely  to  be  honest  and  self-reliant  at 
examination  time.  If  you  and  Tom  are  working  out  the 
problems  in  algebra  together  there  is  always  the  tempta- 


48  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

tion  to  utilize  his  work  as  your  own,  to  trade  answers, 
and  in  reality  to  slight  half  the  work.  If  it  is  translation 
instead  of  mathematics  that  is  being  worked  out,  the 
poorer  student  soon  learns  to  rely  upon  the  better  and 
misses  the  training  which  comes  from  working  out  a  hard 
task  alone. 

Regularity  of  work  counts  for  a  tremendous  lot  in 
any  line  of  business.  Once  get  behind,  and  the  damage 
is  almost  irreparable.  I  was  talking  to  a  discouraged 
high  school  sophomore  today. 

"I  was  a  good  student  last  year,"  he  said,  "and  I'm 
sure  I  have  brains  enough  to  get  on.  I  had  rather  light 
work  this  half  year,  and  I  should  have  carried  it  easily. 
I  simply  loafed  and  let  the  work  pile  up  expecting  to  do 
it  all  in  the  end.  When  I  awoke  to  my  situation  the  pile 
was  more  than  I  could  crawl  over." 

Unless  any  boy  at  the  very  beginning  learns  to  work 
regularly,  he  will  have  a  hard  time  to  learn  later.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  play  the  ant  after  one  has  long  been 
cast  in  the  role  of  the  grasshopper. 

It  is  not  enough  that  a  boy  work  regularly,  he  must 
apply  himself  to  his  work  with  concentration  of  mind. 
The  fellow  who  puts  in  the  most  hours  is  not  necessarily 
the  best  student.  It  is  the  one  who  works  regularly  and 
works  hard  as  well — who  has  his  whole  mind  on  what 
he  is  doing — who  will  accomplish  the  most  and  who  will 
get  the  best  development  out  of  his  work.  As  I  write 
this  paper,  I  have  been  watching  a  young  fellow  sitting 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  49 

on  the  porch  across  the  street  from  my  office  window, 
a  book  in  his  hand  and  his  chair  tilted  back  against  the 
house  wall.  He  is  whistling  to  a  passing  dog  now;  he  was 
engaged  in  conversation  with  a  mate  a  few  moments  ago ; 
he  hailed  the  ice  cream  cone  man  and  did  business  with 
him  at  the  beginning  of  the  hour;  and  yet  he  will  tell  his 
friends  at  dinner  time  how  hard  he  was  grinding  at  his 
lessons  all  the  afternoon. 

One  of  the  poorest  students  with  whom  I  have  had  to 
do  was  as  regular  in  his  work  as  the  phases  of  the  moon 
and  as  sure  to  be  at  his  book  as  taxes,  but  he  worked  too 
much,  and  he  had  no  concentration.  He  would  go  to 
sleep  while  writing  his  theme  as  readily  as  I  did  while 
reading  it.  He  worked  without  method  and  without 
application,  and  so  he  failed  to  carry  anything.  The 
best  student  I  have  ever  known — and  by  that  I  mean 
not  only  the  man  who  was  best  in  his  studies,  but  in  the 
"other  things" — put  in  a  very  few  hours  at  his  work, 
but  he  studied  every  night,  and  when  he  worked  his  whole 
mind  was  directed  toward  what  he  wished  to  accomplish; 
he  did  not  let  anything  come  between  him  and  what  he 
was  doing,  and  when  he  was  through,  he  stopped  and 
put  his  work  away.  He  had  more  leisure  time  at  his 
disposal  than  any  of  the  rest  of  us.  He  won  through 
regularity  and  concentration,  and  these  qualities  are 
usually  to  be  discovered  when  a  man,  high  school  student 
or  otherwise,  succeeds.  It  is  possible  to  learn  concentra- 
tion.   One  must  have  interest,  he  must  have  the  will  to 


50  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

do,  and  he  must  be  wide-awake  enough  to  realize  what  it 
is  that  he  is  trying  to  accomplish. 

But  the  "other  things"  are  important;  only  slightly 
less  important  in  fact  than  the  studies  themselves.  How- 
ever much  a  boy  may  be  devoted  to  his  work  he  can  not 
study  all  the  time,  and  he  should  not  be  allowed  to  do  so 
even  if  it  were  possible.  As  I  remember  my  own  secondary 
school  course  and  try  to  estimate,  as  it  is  impossible  justly 
to  do,  its  present  worth  to  me,  I  am  inclined  to  value  most 
highly  some  of  the  things  that  were  connected  only  re- 
motely with  the  studies  I  was  pursuing.  These  external 
things  naturally  would  have  been  of  little  value  to  me  un- 
less I  had  carried  the  work  I  was  taking,  for  matters  were 
so  conducted  in  our  home  circle  that  a  place  would  read- 
ily have  been  found  for  me  on  the  farm  had  I  shown  any 
chronic  inaptitude  in  securing  grades.  But  granting  that 
abihty,  these  "other  things"  seem  to  me  of  the  greatest 
value.  As  an  instructor  I  can  seldom  find  much  excuse  for 
the  boy  who  does  not  carry  his  work  in  high  school;  but 
the  one  who  does  not  do  more  than  this,  no  matter  how 
high  his  scholastic  standing  may  be,  has  missed  a  very 
large  part  of  what  every  one  should  get  from  high  school 
training.  School  life  is  veiy  much  a  community  life.  No 
one  can  justly  live  to  himself  alone,  and  profit  greatly 
from  the  life.  He  has  his  own  private  individual  work  to 
do,  it  is  true,  and  he  should  do  it;  but  he  has  also  his  obli- 
gations to  his  fellow  students  and  to  the  community  at 
large,  and  these  he  may  not  shirk. 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  51 

I  heard  a  boy  once  boast  that  during  his  high  school 
course  he  had  never  cut  a  class  nor  seen  an  athletic  contest. 
I  am  not  sure  that  either  fact  was  a  virtue,  and  notwith- 
standing that  he  now  wears  a  badge  won  by  high  scho- 
lastic attainments,  I  think  that  his  training  and  his  sym- 
pathies might  have  been  broader  if  his  school  interests 
had,  perhaps,  been  varied  enough  to  make  it  desirable  for 
him  sometimes  to  cut  a  class,  or  interesting  to  attend  a 
ball  game.  I  think  his  influence  now  would  be  wider.  A 
boy's  studies  should  give  him  familiarity  with  ideas,  and 
training  in  principles;  and  "other  things"  in  which  he  in- 
terests himself  should  make  him  acquainted  with  people, 
and  furnish  him  some  opportunity  to  get  experience  in  the 
management  of  erratic  human  beings.  Whether  the  busi- 
ness which  a  young  man  finally  takes  up  happens  to  be 
designing  gas  engines  or  preaching  the  gospel,  he  will  find 
daily  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  both  sorts  of 
training. 

It  is  a  somewhat  overworked  and  jaded  joke  that  class 
valedictorians  generally  bring  up  as  street  car  conductors 
or  as  hack  drivers,  not  that  I  should  like  to  underestimate 
the  value  of  any  one  of  these  positions  or  the  amount  of 
intelligence  required  successfully  to  perfonn  the  work  of 
either  one  of  these  worthy  offices — and  though,  perhaps, 
it  is  a  joke,  one  can  occasionally  find  instances  of  students 
of  the  highest  scholastic  standing  filling  the  most  common- 
place positions  simply  from  lack  of  initiative  or  ability  to 
assume  leadership.    One  such  dropped  in  on  me  only  a  few 


52  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

days  ago.  I  did  not  remember  him  at  first;  he  seemed 
commonplace,  unaggressive,  without  diplomacy.  When 
he  mentioned  his  name  I  recalled  that  he  had  been  vale- 
dictorian of  his  class  a  dozen  years  ago.  He  had  got  no- 
where; he  had  lost  every  position  he  had  held  because  he 
had  no  ability  at  leadership;  he  could  not  adjust  himself 
to  the  peculiarities  of  other  people.  He  was  always  at 
loggerheads  with  his  boss.  The  lack  of  ability  to  get  on 
with  men  often  keeps  a  young  fellow  as  it  had  kept  him, 
from  an  opportunity  to  utihze  his  educational  stock  in 
trade.  Social  training  then,  association  with  man,  is  a 
very  desirable  thing. 

There  are  many  ways  in  which  such  an  association 
may  be  cultivated.  The  ordinary  method  which  sim- 
ply for  the  sake  of  enjoyment  takes  a  boy  out  among  his 
fellows — and  sometimes  his  fellows'  sisters — is  neither  to 
be  ignored  nor  worked  too  strenuously.  Parties  and  pic- 
nics, social  calls,  and  long  quiet  strolls  when  the  moon  is 
full  are,  in  moderation,  helpful,  perhaps,  but  they  should 
not  be  developed  into  a  regular  practice.  Even  a  good 
thing  may  be  overdone.  It  is  exceedingly  desirable  that 
one  should  learn  how  to  manage  his  hands  and  feet  and 
tongue,  but  it  is  quite  possible  to  devote  too  much  time  to 
acquiring  skill  of  this  sort.  The  boy  who  omits  all  so- 
cial life  makes  a  mistake;  the  fellow  who  devotes  a  large 
part  of  his  time  to  it  is  mushy. 

I  have  a  strong  belief  in  the  value  of  athletics.     It  is 
true  that  some  of  the  poorest  students  I  have  ever  known 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  53 

have  called  themselves  athletes  because  their  main  in- 
terest was  physical  rather  than  intellectual,  but  I  have 
known  more  good  students  than  poor  ones  who  have  been 
prominent  in  athletic  events.  The  boy  who  goes  into 
athletics  sanely  has  a  good  chance  of  developing  a  strong 
body;  both  tradition  and  necessity  demand  that  he  live  a 
temperate,  healthy  life,  and  his  thinking  powers  and  his 
ability  to  do  mental  work  are  likely  to  be  stimulated  by 
the  regular  exercise  he  must  take.  It  is  true  that  few  stu- 
dents ever  do  themselves  damage  from  working  too  hard, 
but  a  great  many  develop  chronic  indigestion  and  physi- 
cal worthlessness  from  sitting  in  stuffy  rooms  and  taking 
no  exercise.  I  should  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  ath- 
lete is  usually  a  better  student  than  the  fellow  who  does 
not  go  in  for  such  things,  but  he  is  usually  a  better  all- 
around  man  than  the  other  fellow.  He  has  more  stamina 
and  endurance,  and  because  of  his  symmetrical  develop- 
ment he  is  more  likely  to  make  a  success  later  in  life  than 
boys  who  have  had  no  such  training.  For  this  reason  as 
well  as  for  the  pleasure  and  relaxation  in  it,  every  student 
who  can  should  go  in  for  some  athletic  game. 

There  are  a  good  many  societies  in  high  school  which 
will  bid  for  the  boy's  time  and  attendance.  Many  very 
worthy  people  think  most  of  these  are  wholly  bad,  and 
advise  the  boy  to  steer  clear  of  them  all  as  he  would  dodge 
smallpox  and  the  tax  collector.  Most  of  these  organiza- 
tions have  their  uses,  however,  and  in  the  majority  of 
cases  they  are  good.     Most  boys  would  be  helped  by 


54  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

joining  a  debating  society  both  on  account  of  the  per- 
sonal associations  which  they  would  cultivate,  and  for  the 
training  it  would  give  them  in  speaking  and  writing.  It 
is  a  great  asset  to  be  able  to  say  easily  what  one  has  in  his 
mind.  Dramatics,  declamation  contests,  musical  or- 
ganizations, stunt  shows  in  general  give  one  a  training 
which  will  later  in  life  repay  many  times  the  effort  en- 
^iailed  in  the  practice  for  these  activities. 

There  are  political  opportunities  in  high  school  which 
should  not  be  overlooked.  Class  officers  and  manager- 
ships must  be  filled.  Such  work  offers  an  excellent  chance 
for  the  development  of  business  sense  and  business  ex- 
perience, and  for  widening  one's  influence  and  control  of 
men.  The  necessary  relationships  which  political  activity 
requires  develop  resourcefulness,  shrewdness,  and  a  gen- 
eral understanding  of  human  nature.  It  gives  training  in 
organizing  men,  in  planning  operations,  in  meeting  un- 
expected situations.  It  is  one  of  the  best  experiences  a 
boy  can  have.  It  is  often,  too,  a  strong  test  of  a  boy's 
character,  for,  even  in  high  school  politics,  there  is  con- 
stant opportunity  for  graft,  for  trickery,  and  for  dis- 
honesty. The  boy  who  goes  through  such  a  contest  and 
comes  out  clean  has  had  a  test  and  a  training  which  will 
prove  invaluable  to  him. 

The  four  years  you  are  in  high  school  should  mean 
something  more  than  the  mere  acquaintance  with  facts, 
or  the  acquiring  of  information  or  the  passing  of  ex- 
aminations;  it  should  give  you  a  knowledge  of  other 


STUDIES  AND  OTHER  THINGS  55 

boys.  But  in  getting  this  second  sort  of  training  you 
will  usually  have  to  choose  between  several  of  many 
interests.  If  you  elect  to  do  one  thing,  you  must  usually 
omit  the  rest.  A  fellow  may  occasionally  be  president 
of  his  class  and  at  the  same  time  captain  of  the  foot- 
ball team,  but  ordinarily  one  of  these  positions  is  quite 
sufficient  to  occupy  his  leisure  moments.  If  you  try  too 
much,  you  will  fail  in  all.  If  you  get  into  the  real  life  of 
the  school  and  do  something  to  direct  its  current,  you  will 
usually  be  better  fitted  to  meet  the  unexpected  in  the 
more  strenuous  world  into  which  you  must  go  when  you 
enter  college  or  take  up  the  practical  work  of  life,  than  you 
would  be  if  you  simply  did  your  school  work  and  stayed  in 
you  own  little  shell. 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES 

Most  students  in  high  school  quite  seriously  believe 
that  examinations  have  been  devised  by  teachers  merely 
to  torture  a  group  of  defenseless  young  people.  They 
see  in  examinations  neither  pleasure  nor  benefit,  they 
look  forward  to  their  approach  with  premonition  and 
pain,  and  give  a  relieved  sigh  when  each  series  of  exam- 
inations is  safely  past. 

"The  teacher  knows  what  a  fellow  will  do  before  he 
takes  an  examination,"  the  high  school  boy  argues,  "so 
why  can't  he  let  it  go  at  that  and  give  a  man  a  grade  with- 
out working  him  to  a  shadow  or  scaring  him  to  death  in 
getting  ready  for  an  examination?" 

When  I  was  in  college  we  had  a  shrewd  old  instructor, 
lazy  we  thought  him  at  times,  whom  we  could  never 
quite  make  out.  His  grades  were  always  in  the  college 
office  within  a  surprisingly  short  time  after  the  examina- 
tion had  ceased,  so  that  there  was  a  suspicion  in  the  minds 
of  a  good  many  of  us  that  he  never  read  his  examination 
papers  at  all,  but  dumped  them  into  the  waste  paper 
basket  and  went  home  to  enjoy  his  cigar. 

The  trouble  was  that  no  one  quite  liked  to  take  the 
risk  to  prove  his  suspicion.  We  threatened  often  to  test 
out  our  theories  by  not  studying  for  the  quiz  and  by 
writing  down  any  sort  of  bunk  that  came  into  our  heads 

56 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  57 

when  we  got  into  the  classroom,  but  these  threats  seldom 
got  further  than  talk.  Fred  Waterman  tried  it  once  and 
flunked  the  course,  whether  because  the  old  man  read 
the  paper  and  discovered  Fred's  trick,  or  because  he  had 
already  scheduled  Fred  for  defeat,  we  could  never  quite 
determine.  As  it  was  the  majority  of  us  went  on  bon- 
ing up  for  the  examination  and  sweating  through  it, 
fearful  that  after  all  that  the  instructor  might  read  the 
papers.  I  always  meant  to  ask  him  after  I  got  out  of 
college  whether  he  did  or  not,  but  I  could  never  quite 
get  up  my  nerve.  I  can  see  now  that  whether  he  read 
them  or  not  made  very  little  difference.  He  was  a  good 
judge  of  human  nature.  He  knew  us  well  enough  so  as  sel- 
dom to  do  us  any  especial  intellectual  injustice,  and  he  kept 
us  guessing  so  that  we  had  to  make  the  review  and  the 
preparation  that  he  wanted  us  to  make. 

The  boy  is  right  who  says  that  the  teacher  generally 
knows  pretty  well  beforehand  what  his  students  are  worth 
and  what  they  will  know  on  an  examination.  The  teacher 
is  just  as  sure,  however,  if  he  is  any  judge  of  human 
nature,  that  it  is  the  getting  ready  for  the  examination 
and  the  actually  taking  of  it  that  makes  the  boy  sure  of 
what  he  knows.  If  he  knew  that  he  did  not  have  to  take 
an  examination  the  boy  would  seldom  make  any  special 
mental  effort.  Our  old  high  school  trainer  used  to  know 
pretty  well  what  Jim  Whalen  would  do  in  the  race 
for  which  he  was  practicing,  though  Jim  seldom  made 
any  remarkable  showing  before  the  tune  of  actual  contest. 


58  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

It  was  the  thought  of  the  race  itself  that  put  nerve  into 
Jim.  It  was  the  contact  with  the  other  fellows  and  the 
stimulus  of  competition  that  urged  him  on  and  made 
him  win.  Jim  would  never  have  been  much  of  a  runner 
unless  he  had  been  put  into  a  race,  and  no  one  knew  the 
fact  better  than  the  trainer.  It  is  the  same  way  with  a 
boy  in  examinations. 

A  good  many  schools  follow  the  practice  of  excusing 
from  final  examinations  all  students  whose  daily  work 
averages  above  a  certain  grade.  I  know  a  good  many 
high  school  boys  who  have  never  taken  a  final  examina- 
tion and  who  would  not  know  how  to  do  so  creditably. 
It  is  a  perfectly  easy  matter,  if  he  is  alert  while  in  the 
classroom  and  regular  in  his  class  attendance,  for  a 
boy  to  keep  his  daily  grades  up  and  still  to  have  very 
little  general  grasp  of  the  subject.  I  have  just  answered 
a  letter  from  the  father  of  one  of  our  freshmen  in  college. 
The  boy  has  been  dropped  at  the  end  of  his  first  year 
for  poor  scholarship,  and  the  father  finds  it  difficult 
to  understand  why. 

"George  was  always  a  good  student  in  the  high  school," 
he  wrote.  "He  never  had  to  take  an  examination,  and 
I  can  not  see  why  he  had  done  so  badly  in  college.'' 

In  college  George  was  required  in  his  final  examina- 
tion to  present  a  general  view  of  the  whole  subject-matter 
covered  in  his  course;  he  found  it  necessary  to  syste- 
matize his  knowledge  and  to  present  his  facts  in  an  orderly 
fashion,  and  he  had  had  no  previous  practice  in  doing  this 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  59 

sort  of  thing.  It  was  quite  easy  to  see  why  he  had  failed. 
He  was  working  under  a  new  system,  and  he  had  not 
adjusted  himself  to  it. 

I  have  seldom  seen  a  boy  who  was  so  smart  in  high  school 
that  he  was  excused  from  all  his  examinations  who, 
without  unusual  effort,  was  able  to  do  well  in  college. 
Such  boys  have  a  good  many  facts,  possibly,  in  their 
possession,  but  when  they  want  to  use  them,  they  don't 
know  where  they  are.  They  have  been  mislaid  or  so 
jumbled  up  with  other  things  that  it  is  impossible  to 
disentangle  them.  Knowledge  is  of  little  use  to  any  one 
unless  it  is  available.  I  have  all  sorts  of  tools  about 
the  house,  but  if  when  I  want  to  drive  a  nail  I  discover 
that  the  hammer  is  gone,  and  I  am  forced  to  use  a  flat 
iron,  of  what  service  to  me  is  the  hammer?  A  boy  may 
have  innumerable  items  of  information  somewhere 
about  his  brain,  but  if  when  he  finds  a  use  for  facts 
it  is  impossible  for  him  to  organize  or  to  recall  them^ 
he  is  about  as  well  off  as  if  he  did  not  have  them 
at  all. 

The  best  possible  use  of  an  examination  is  that  it 
necessitates  an  organization  of  knowledge.  A  boy  must 
get  his  facts  into  some  sort  of  order  if  he  is  to  do  his  best 
in  a  hmited  time.  He  must  have  what  he  has  learned 
laid  out  before  his  mental  vision  so  that  he  can  put  his 
hands  on  it  readily  if  it  is  called  for.  I  am  often  an  on- 
looker at  surgical  operations.  Nothing  in  this  sort  of 
experience    interests    me    more    than    the    preparations 


60  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

which  are  always  made  before  the  actual  work  of  the 
operation  begins.  There  is  the  movable  tray  standing 
ready  by  the  operating  table  with  its  array  of  instru- 
ments all  laid  out  in  the  most  careful  order.  There  are 
sponges,  and  needles,  and  all  sorts  of  thread,  and  de- 
tractors, and  forceps  all  in  their  places,  and  so  arranged 
that  whatever  may  be  needed  in  the  emergency  that 
is  likely  to  occur  will  be  ready  for  use.  It  is  some  such 
preparation  as  this  that  a  boy  should  make  who  is  get- 
ting ready  for  an  examination.  He  does  not  know  what 
is  going  to  be  called  for,  but  if  he  has  his  information 
in  logical  order  he  is  ready  for  any  call. 

An  examination,  or  at  least  the  preparation  which 
any  sensible  boy  will  make  in  getting  ready  for  an  ex- 
amination, is  an  excellent  training  in  judgment.  The 
boy,  as  he  goes  over  the  material  he  has  studied,  must 
determine  what  is  fundamental,  what  is  important,  and 
what  without  danger  may  be  discarded.  This  requires 
thought,  discrimination,  and  care.  It  is  not  so  difficult 
to  pick  out  each  day  the  important  facts  of  a  lesson  as 
it  is  at  the  close  of  a  year's  or  a  half  year's  study  to  select 
what  one  should  carry  with  him  from  the  mass  of  facts 
that  has  been  considered.  Knowing  that  he  will  be 
required  to  do  this,  a  boy  will  study  with  a  very  different 
purpose  than  he  would  shov/  if  he  were  convinced  that 
when  a  day's  lesson  is  learned,  he  is  through  with  it 
for  all  tune. 

Examinations  are  meant  to  test  a  student's  resource- 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  61 

fulness,  his  ability  to  meet  a  new  situation,  to  assemble 
facts  in  a  different  way  than  he  had  been  accustomed  to 
do,  and  from  them  to  draw  new  conclusions. 

"I  never  heard  of  some  of  the  things  the  teacher  asked 
us  today,"  one  of  my  neighbor  boys  announced  following 
a  jBnal  examination.  "I'm  sure  a  lot  of  the  answers  were 
not  in  the  book." 

It  always  seems  an  injustice  to  a  boy  to  be  asked  on  an 
examination  anything  the  answer  to  which  can  not  easily 
be  found  by  turning  to  the  book.  But  really  the  best  sort 
of  question  to  ask  is  the  one  that  requires  the  searching  of 
a  boy's  brain  rather  than  the  book  before  he  finds  the 
proper  answer.  Nobody  in  real  life  ever  finds  a  problem 
presented  just  as  it  is  in  the  book,  but,  if  he  has  learned 
to  analyze  and  to  organize  his  knowledge,  the  one  in  the 
book  helps  him  to  the  solution  of  the  one  in  real  life.  The 
lawyer  seldom  if  ever  finds  the  series  of  circumstances 
surrounding  his  first  important  case  like  any  particular 
illustration  he  has  studied;  the  surgeon  taking  out  his 
first  appendix  can  seldom  put  his  finger  on  the  disturbing 
organ  at  the  point  where  the  books  say  it  ought  to  be.  It 
is  the  thing  that  isn't  in  the  book  that  we  are  always  run- 
ning up  against  in  practical  life,  and  it  is  a  very  good  ex- 
perience to  get  used  to  in  the  examinations  taken  in 

school. 

The  greatest  howl  which  is  set  up  by  the  high  school 
boys  I  know  against  examinations  is  caused  by  the  so- 
called  "catch-questions"  which  are  frequently  introduced 


62  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

into  examinations,  and  by  the  fact  that  examinations  are 
frequently  sprung  upon  an  unsuspecting  and  unprepared 
class  without  announcement. 

"If  he  had  only  told  us  ahead  of  time  that  we  were  go- 
ing to  have  the  quiz,"  the  boy  protests,  "it  wouldn't  have 
been  so  bad;  but  there  we  were  absolutely  unprepared. 
It  wasn't  fair." 

Here  again  there  is  something  to  be  said  on  the  other 
side.  It  is  the  purpose  of  an  examination  just  as  much  to 
discover  what  a  boy  does  not  know  as  it  is  to  find  out  the 
facts  he  is  acquainted  with.  It  is  very  helpful  to  a  teacher 
at  times  as  well  as  to  his  students  to  stumble  upon  the 
weak  places  in  his  teaching  and  in  their  knowledge.  The 
"catch  question"  often  tests  the  alert  mind.  All  through 
life  a  boy  will  find  that  there  is  likely  to  be  some  one  lying 
in  wait  to  catch  him  by  a  trick  or  a  technicality.  He  might 
as  well  get  used  early  in  life  to  recognizing  these  situations 
and  meeting  them.  If  only  the  expected  happened,  the 
world  would  be  a  very  much  easier  place  in  which  to  hve 
than  it  now  is.  I  try  to  figure  out  each  morning  as  I  go 
to  my  office  what  form  of  student  irregularity  I  shall  dur- 
ing the  day  have  to  adjust,  but  I  am  never  successful.  No 
two  days  are  alike;  every  problem  which  is  presented  has 
something  in  it  unforeseen  and  unlike  anything  else  which 
I  have  ever  met.  If  we  knew  when  we  were  going  to  die 
we  should  be  upset  considerably,  no  doubt,  but  I  am  not 
at  all  sure  that  wo  should  meet  the  grim  destroyer  with 
any  more  composure  than  we  shall  when  he  comes  upon  us 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  63 

unannounced.  It  is  the  way  most  experiences  of  life  come, 
so  why  not  examinations? 

The  hard  examination  is  frequently  objected  to  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  not  a  fair  test  of  a  student's  knowledge. 
It  is  a  good  thing  for  every  boy,  however,  occasionally  to 
give  his  brain  a  stiff  work  out.  Our  real  physical  and  in- 
tellectual strength  is  tested  not  so  much  by  what  we 
can  accomplish  as  we  loaf  along  lazily  through  life,  as 
by  what  we  can  do  when  we  are  pushed  into  a  corner  and 
forced  to  work  or  to  think  our  hardest.  The  boys  who 
came  through  the  horrors  of  the  Argonne  or  of  Belleau 
Wood  never  suspected  what  they  could  stand  until  put 
to  the  test,  and  their  changed  point  of  view  reveals  the 
fact  that  they  were  strengthened  by  the  test.  One  young 
boy  I  know  got  three  meals  out  of  eleven  and  was  without 
sleep  for  three  days,  and  I  suppose  he  had  an  easy  time  as 
compared  with  what  other  boys  suffered.  Of  course,  if  a 
boy  lies  down  and  refuses  to  do  his  best  when  he  comes  up 
against  a  hard  mental  test,  the  advantage  to  him  of  such  an 
experience  is  nullified. 

An  examination  is  a  good  game,  if  a  boy  will  think  of  it 
so,  a  game  which  it  is  possible  to  learn  to  play  skilfully.  He 
must  first  of  all  keep  his  head  if  he  is  going  to  make  a  good 
score.  He  should  go  into  the  game  in  good  condition  and 
with  good  spirits.  I  know  many  fellows  who  get  ready  for 
an  examination  by  studying  far  into  the  night  or  all  night, 
trying  in  a  few  hours  to  cram  into  their  brains  all  sorts  of 
miscellaneous  information.    They  get  little  sleep,  and  they 


64  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

go  to  their  examination  stupid  and  irritable  and  in  no  con- 
dition to  meet  either  the  unexpected  or  the  difficult.  One 
of  the  best  preparations  for  a  stiff  examination  is  a  good 
night's  sleep  and  a  cold  shower  on  rising.  An  intelligent 
review  of  the  ground  covered  every  one  ought  to  take,  but 
he  should  not  try  to  do  this  at  one  sitting  at  the  expense 
of  his  regular  hours  for  sleep.  This  review  is  purely  a 
matter  of  judgment  to  determine  what  is  essential  and 
what  is  not.  It  is  the  steady,  regular,  daily  work  that  gets 
a  fellow  into  condition  for  an  examination  more  than  the 
feverish  cramming  the  night  before  the  test  comes. 

Next  to  a  rested  body,  a  calm  mind  and  a  reasonable 
self-confidence  are  most  helpful  in  passing  a  good  ex- 
amination, and  these  states  of  mind  are  much  more  fully 
within  a  boy's  personal  control  than  we  are  sometimes  will- 
ing to  admit.  Worry  and  fear  and  lack  of  faith  in  our  own 
ability  to  do  a  task  well  we  largely  induce  in  ourselves,  or 
eliminate  from  our  minds  as  the  case  may  be.  Self-con- 
trol is  a  good  deal  a  matter  of  will,  and  the  boy  who  is  get- 
ting ready  to  take  an  examination  can  exercise  it  very  much 
to  his  advantage.  Whenever  a  player  in  any  game  allows 
himself  to  get  ''rattled,"  then  his  game  goes  to  pieces. 

One  should  go  at  an  examination  in  an  orderly  fashion. 
If  you  will  watch  a  good  whist  player  you  will  see  that  he 
arranges  his  cards  carefully  before  he  leads  so  that  he  can 
determine  easily  what  the  strength  of  his  hand  is.  He  tac- 
kles first  the  thing  that  he  is  sure  of.  So  a  boy  going  into 
an  examination  should  get  a  grasp  of  the  whole  situation 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  65 

before  he  begins  his  solution.  He  should  read  the  entire 
examination  paper  before  he  begins  to  write,  and  should 
take  stock  of  the  requirements  and  of  his  assets.  He 
should  adjust  his  time  to  the  length  of  the  task  before  him. 
I  have  seen  a  good  many  boys  fail  an  examination  be- 
cause having  met  something  difficult  at  the  outset,  they 
gave  most  of  their  available  time  to  the  solution  of  this 
problem  and  had  no  time  left  for  the  remainder  of  the 
examination  which  they  might  have  found  relatively 
simple. 

The  best  way  from  my  experience  to  "  hit  an  examination 
hard"  is  to  answer  first  and  as  rapidly  as  possible  all  the 
questions  the  answers  to  which  seem  easy  or  obvious.  This 
is  quite  possible,  since  students  are  seldom  if  ever  required 
to  write  their  answers  in  any  definite  order.  By  safely 
and  quickly  disposing  of  a  reasonable  share  of  the  exam- 
ination, the  boy  gains  confidence,  he  realizes  that  he  is 
probably  doing  fairly  well,  and  he  can  divide  the  remainder 
of  his  time  between  the  questions  that  seem  to  him  to  re- 
quire more  thought  and  care.  His  very  satisfied  state  of 
mind  will  help  clear  his  brain  and  steady  his  nerves  for  the 
doing  of  the  task  that  is  more  difficult. 

During  all  this  time  he  ought  to  be  giving  some  at- 
tention to  the  order  and  form  of  his  answers.  A  neatly 
written,  orderly  arranged  examination  paper,  other  things 
being  equal,  will  draw  a  higher  grade  by  several  per  cent 
than  another  one  which  may  contain  the  same  information 
badly  put  together.    We  are  all  unconsciously  attracted 


66  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

by  the  shop  whose  windows  display  a  tasteful  and  orderly 
arrangement  of  wares.  Any  jumble  annoys  us  even  if  it 
be  a  jumble  of  things  otherwise  pleasing  and  attractive. 
Arrange  your  answers,  therefore,  so  that  they  look  well. 
If  possible  put  them  down  so  that  the  instructor  can  read- 
ily grasp  what  you  are  trying  to  say,  and  will  not  have  to 
waste  his  time  and  his  patience  in  digging  out  your  reason- 
ing. Number  or  letter  the  subdivisions  of  your  answers 
if  necessary.  Write  legibly.  I  have  thrown  aside  many  an 
examination  paper  disgusted  because  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible to  determine  the  identity  of  the  written  words.  Don't 
crowd  your  material;  paper  is  of  less  value  than  your  in- 
structor's eyesight  or  peace  of  mind.  The  very  fact  that 
you  seem  trying  to  make  what  you  say  clear  and  easy 
of  comprehension  predisposes  the  instructor  in  your 
favor. 

It  sometimes  pays  to  guess,  if  one  is  not  certain  of  his 
facts.  Of  course,  it  is  a  weak  player  who  is  always  un- 
certain, and  a  weak  boy  who  hasn't  some  things  definitely 
in  mind.  But  on  occasion  it  is  best  to  take  a  chance,  and 
if  you  are  wrong  to  take  the  consequences.  Even  the  best 
of  us  has  to  bluff  once  in  a  while,  and  just  so  one  doesn't 
get  the  reputation  for  regularly  doing  it,  no  harm  is  likely 
to  be  done.  It  is  better  to  be  struck  out  trying  to  hit  the 
ball  than  it  is  to  be  sent  back  to  the  bench  never  having 
swung  the  bat. 

I  have  spoken  of  examinations  as  a  game.  I  should  like 
to  have  every  boy  feel  that  it  is  an  honest  game,  an  honor- 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  67 

able  gentleman's  game,  which  he  must  play  squarely,  de- 
pending upon  his  own  skill  and  his  own  knowledge  to 
carry  him  through. 

"But  I  had  to  pass,"  a  boy  said  to  me  once  in  justifica- 
tion of  the  fact  that  he  had  been  caught  cribbing. 

He  was  entirely  mistaken.  Nobody  has  to  pass,  and  no- 
body should  pass  unless  he  does  so  honestly.  The  boy 
who  gains  his  grades  through  cribbing,  is  little  better  than 
a  common  thief.  There  are  a  thousand  forms  and  methods 
of  getting  help  illegitimately  in  an  examination,  from 
cribbing  from  your  neighbor's  paper  to  bringing  books  and 
elaborately  disguised  "ponies"  to  class,  but  no  one  who 
cares  for  honesty  and  for  his  reputation  will  have  anything 
to  do  with  any  of  these.  In  truth  they  seldom  help  a  great 
deal.  I  am  convinced  that  it  could  be  shown,  if  the  proper 
investigation  were  made,  that  the  cribber  loses  on  the 
whole  more  than  he  gains  not  only  in  self-reUance  and 
strength  of  character  but  in  the  accuracy  of  the  informa- 
tion which  he  puts  down,  which  would  be  more  de- 
pendable if  he  relied  upon  his  own  brains.  There  is  the 
greatest  satisfaction  always  in  feeling  after  an  examination 
that  one  has  done  a  good  piece  of  work.  There  is  the  great- 
est satisfaction  in  being  able  to  feel  that  whatever  the  re- 
sult of  the  test  you  have  done  your  best  and  that  you  have 
played  a  clean  square  game.  I  always  feel  proud  of  the 
boy  who  can  say  after  he  has  taken  a  quiz, 

"Well,  whatever  my  grade  is,  what  I  handed  in  was 
entirely  my  own."     Like  Paul  he  can  say,  "I  have  fought 


68  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  the  course,  I  have  kept  the 
faith." 

One  of  the  stock  arguments  against  examinations  is  that 
they  are  not  fair. 

"I  could  have  answered  ahnost  anything  else  in  the 
book,"  the  boy  who  has  just  been  through  an  examina- 
tion protests.  "He  asked  me  just  the  things  I  didn't 
know." 

This  is,  of  course,  virtually  admitting  that  what  the 
teacher  had  considered  fundamental,  the  boy  had  thought 
of  as  trivial,  and  tends  to  prove  that  his  mind  had  not  been 
especially  alert  during  the  recitation  periods.  It  is  not 
possible  that  the  teacher,  in  making  a  comprehensive  set 
of  examination  questions,  should  have  selected  only  those 
details  with  which  the  student  was  not  familiar  unless  the 
student  had  shown  little  attention  to  what  had  been  going 
on  in  the  class  recitation.  Even  a  poor  teacher  makes 
pretty  clear  during  the  class  work  some  of  the  points  at 
least  which  he  considers  important. 

I  have  never  doubted  that  there  are  times  when  an  ex- 
amination strikes  even  a  good  student  pretty  hard,  just  as 
in  playing  a  game  one  is  sure  at  times  to  draw  a  poor  hand 
or  to  have  a  bad  run  of  luck.  But  just  as  surely  he  will 
stumble  upon  the  easy  test  when  everything  seems  to  be 
coming  his  way.  Sometimes,  when  he  has  apparently 
made  little  preparation,  the  quiz  seems  as  easy  as  taking 
candy  away  from  a  baby.  In  such  a  case,  however,  I  have 
yet  to  hear  the  first  claim  that  examinations  do  not  fairly 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  69 

measure  a  boy's  ability.  It  is  the  average,  and  not  the 
single  test  that  truthfully  measures  a  student's  accom- 
plishments. 

I  always  like  to  hear  a  group  of  high  school  boys  dis- 
cussing grades.  From  such  discussions,  of  which  I  have 
heard  not  a  few,  I  would  draw  the  conclusion  that  from  the 
high  school  boy's  point  of  view  at  least,  grades  do  not  indi- 
cate fairly  a  boy's  accomplishment  in  any  subject.  Grades 
are  in  no  sense  an  index  of  a  student's  real  ability  and  do 
not  show  what  he  has  "got  out  of  a  subject."  They  do 
not  suggest  anything  of  what  he  is  likely  to  accomplish 
after  he  is  through  with  school  and  college  and  has  gone 
into  the  practical  work  of  life.  If  a  mistake  has  ever  been 
made  in  a  boy's  grade,  and  such  mistakes  the  boy  admits 
are  legion,  it  has  always  been  that  he  has  been  marked 
lower  than  he  deserved.  I  have  never  yet  heard  a  boy  com- 
plain that  his  teacher  had  given  him  a  grade  higher  than  he 
was  entitled  to.  The  assigning  of  grades,  he  is  convinced, 
is  very  much  a  lottery.  The  teacher  very  likely  writes  the 
names  of  his  students  on  slips  of  paper  and  puts  them  in 
one  hat,  and  a  series  of  grades  on  other  slips  and  puts  these 
in  another  hat,  pulls  out  a  name  and  then  a  grade  and  thus 
settles  each  boy's  fate.  It  is  a  pretty  generally  accepted 
doctrine  that  nothing  gives  a  teacher  so  much  or  so  ex- 
quisite joy  as  to  be  able  to  flunk  a  boy.  The  more  he 
flunks  the  more  pleasure  he  gets  out  of  his  work. 

To  begin  with,  grades  are  symbols  only;  they  should 
never  be  taken  quite  literally.    They  are  meant  merely  to 


70  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

indicate  the  difference  between  poor  and  excellent  work. 
The  raising  or  the  lowering  of  the  passing  grade  in  any 
school  would  seldom  if  ever  influence  the  number  who 
would  be  passed  or  failed.  For  instance,  in  the  school 
which  I  attended  seventy-five  was  the  passing  grade.  At  a 
similar  institution  which  a  boy  friend  attended  in  another 
country,  thirty  was  the  passing  grade,  and  yet  no  larger  a 
percentage  of  the  students  were  passed  in  his  school  than 
in  mine.  The  only  difference  was  that  in  the  school 
with  the  lower  passing  grade  it  was  possible  to  show 
a  greater  variety  of  ability,  and  the  student  in  his  institu- 
tion who  was  given  the  very  high  grade  was  entitled  to 
somewhat  more  distinction  than  was  the  man  who  got 
the  high  grade  in  my  institution.  Students  argue  often 
that  because  the  passing  grade  in  a  school  is  high  the 
standard  of  excellence  in  that  school  is  necessarily  higher 
than  in  a  school  where  the  passing  grade  is  lower.  There 
is  little  or  nothing  to  such  an  argument. 

To  a  very  large  degree  grades  are  an  index  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  work  that  a  student  is  doing.  A  single  grade 
either  high  or  low  can  not  fairly  determine  an  individual 
case,  for  a  single  grade  may  be  the  result  of  luck,  good  or 
bad,  or,  perhaps,  it  is  better  to  say  of  chance;  but  a  boy's 
average  grade  may  in  general  fairly  be  taken  to  represent 
either  his  ability  or  his  industry.  If  his  grades  are  uni- 
formly high  he  is  either  a  quick,  clever  thinker  or  a  hard 
worker;  if  they  are  regularly  low,  he  is  either  dull  or 
lazy. 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  71 

"Now,  father,"  I  heard  Frank  explaining  to  his  parent 
when  questioned  as  to  the  cause  of  a  particularly  modest 
showing  in  grades  at  the  end  of  a  half  year,  "I  got 
a  lot  out  of  those  courses  which  doesn't  show  in  my 
grades." 

He  was  really  dodging  the  issue  as  was  Adam  when 
caught  with  the  apple  or  Cain  when  his  brother  was 
missing. 

If  a  boy  has  actually  secured  any  logical  or  definite  in- 
formation from  a  course  the  chances  are  overwhelmingly 
in  favor  of  his  being  able  to  make  clear  to  the  teacher  that 
this  is  the  case.  The  boy  who  writes  a  poor  examination  is 
in  the  same  class  as  the  teacher  who  presents  his  subject 
badly — ten  chances  to  one  the  matter  is  muddled  in  his 
own  brain.  If  you  will  pin  such  a  person  down  to  actual 
"brass  tacks,"  you  will  find  that  his  knowledge  is  not 
clear-cut  and  definite. 

It  is  not  at  all  difficult  to  find  illustrations  of  the  high 
school  and  college  student  whose  scholastic  record  has  been 
commonplace  or  poor  who  later  in  life  has  made  a  distinct 
if  not  a  brilliant  business  or  professional  success.  Neither 
is  it  impossible  to  find  illustrations  of  the  high  school  and 
college  valedictorian  whose  place  in  middle  life  is  common- 
place and  whose  success  was  never  attained.  The  fact, 
however,  that  such  cases  stand  out  so  clearly,  that  they 
make  such  a  vivid  impression  upon  our  minds,  only  tends 
to  prove  that  they  are  rather  rare.  The  dullard  in  school 
is  not  hopeless;  he  simply  has  far  less  chance  to  make  good 


72  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

than  has  the  student  who  has  given  a  good  account  of  him- 
self. The  bright  student  in  school  and  college  does  not 
have  a  monopoly  on  success;  he  simply  has  considerably 
more  than  an  even  chance  with  the  other  fellows  to  make 
good. 

I  have  followed  pretty  carefully  the  record  of  fellows 
whom  I  knew  in  school  and  college  twenty-five  or  thirty 
years  ago.  There  are  a  few  who  did  well  scholastically 
who  have  done  little  in  the  positions  which  they  have 
since  held.  In  most  cases,  however,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  understand  why;  they  had  alert  minds  without  self- 
reUance  or  initiative.  There  are  some,  also,  whose  scho- 
lastic record  was  little  to  their  credit,  who  are  now  leaders 
in  the  business  or  the  profession  which  they  have  taken  up. 
Here,  too,  the  explanation  is  not  hard  to  find.  They  had 
conceit  and  self-reliance;  they  were  good  judges  of  human 
nature,  and  their  independence  and  personal  magnetism 
outweighed  their  lack  of  ability  to  think  and  reason  logi- 
cally. On  the  whole,  however,  I  can  say  that  in  more  than 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  cases  of  the  fellows  I  have  known 
in  school  and  college,  the  success  of  these  men  could  be 
very  accurately  measured  by  the  grades  which  they  re- 
ceived while  they  were  in  the  high  school  or  college.  It  is 
as  sensible  to  claim  that  character  is  worthless,  because  it 
is  possible  to  show  that  a  crook  occasionally  gets  by  with 
his  crookedness,  as  it  is  to  claim  that  grades  neither  indi- 
cate a  boy's  success  in  school  nor  his  probable  progress 
later  in  life.    The  facts  prove  otherwise. 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  73 

"I'm  not  working  for  grades,"  I  hear  boys  say  repeat- 
edly. "I  don't  believe  grades  show  much  about  a  fellow's 
work." 

Fathers,  too,  echo  the  same  sentiments,  but  never  so 
far  as  I  can  now  recall,  when  their  sons  were  getting  any- 
thing creditable  in  the  way  of  grades.  It  was  the  defense 
of  their  son's  commonplace  work  which  they  were  throw- 
ing up.  It  was  another  case  of  the  fox  who,  when  he  saw 
that  he  could  not  reach  the  grapes,  consoled  himself  by 
declaring  them  sour.  It  would  be  quite  as  sensible  and 
convincing  an  argument,  it  seems  to  me,  for  a  runner  to 
say,  "I  don't  care  what  time  I  make  in  the  race;  it  doesn't 
seem  to  me  that  time  means  anything  when  a  fellow's  in 
a  race.  Just  so  one  gets  around  the  track  a  certain  num- 
ber of  times  is  all  that  is  necessary;"  or  for  a  base  ball 
player  to  declare,  ''I  don't  count  much  on  the  base  hits 
or  the  runs  a  man  makes;  I  went  to  bat  just  as  many  times 
as  any  one  did," 

High  grades  are  an  indication  of  accomplishment;  they 
show,  usually,  correct  thinking,  logical  arrangement,  and 
a  grasp  of  fundamentals.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  they  are 
the  result  of  dishonest  methods,  or  of  a  well-trained  mem- 
ory, but  such  cases  are  the  exception  and  not  the  rule.  The 
low  grade,  in  general,  suggests  the  commonplace  student 
who  is  either  slow  in  his  thinking  processes  or  unwilling 
to  work.  No  one  should  be  satisfied  to  do  poorly.  Every 
business  man,  every  professional  man,  every  boy  in  high 
school  ought  to  be  ambitious  to  excel  in  his  special  line  of 


74  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

endeavor.  It  is  not  enough  just  to  come  out  even  at  the 
end  of  the  year  or  just  to  get  by  at  the  examination.  One 
should  have  pride  enough  to  be  eager  to  be  as  good  as  the 
best. 

I  have  been  a  teacher  for  a  good  many  years  and  I  know 
that  the  great  body  of  teachers  want  their  students  to  do 
well,  and  are  as  proud  as  the  boys  themselves  when  their 
students  do  attain  scholastic  distinction.  The  teacher 
who  takes  delight  in  seeing  his  students  fail  can  occasion- 
ally be  found,  but  only  rarely,  I  am  sure. 

As  I  was  walking  home  to  lunch  during  examination  time 
I  came  upon  one  of  our  instructors.  He  was  dragging  him- 
self along  very  slowly  and  looking  the  picture  of  gloom. 
He  is  at  best  not  a  hilarious  person,  and  he  has  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  a  rather  hard  taskmaster  in  his  classes  and 
one  who  takes  a  certain  pleasure  in  seeing  the  downfall  of 
the  unambitious  student. 

"What's  on  your  mind,  Fred?"  I  asked. 

"I  haven't  slept  well  the  last  few  nights,"  he  admitted. 
"A  lot  of  my  boys  haven't  done  well  on  the  examinations, 
and  I  can't  see  why.  I  hate  to  flunk  them.  The  fact  is 
I've  read  some  of  the  papers  three  or  four  times  trying  to 
find  enough  in  them  to  pass  the  fellows.  I'm  late  now  in 
handing  in  my  grades,  and  I'm  just  trying  to  determine 
what  I  ought  to  do." 

I  laughed.  I  am  sure  not  one  of  his  students  would  have 
believed  me  if  I  had  told  them  that  Professor  Frederick 
Brown,   the   cold-blooded,   hard-hearted   instructor   who 


EXAMINATIONS  AND  GRADES  75 

took  such  delight  in  flunking  every  one  possible,  was  ly- 
ing awake  of  nights  trying  to  devise  some  honest  way  to 
pass  the  boys;  but  that  is  what  really  happens  more  often 
than  we  imagine.  Any  good  teacher  wants  his  students  to 
do  well;  any  ambitious  boy  wants  to  get  good  grades. 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR 

Every  boy  has  leisure — much  more,  often,  than  he  thinks. 
There  are  the  hours  during  the  day  when  no  tasks  are  set, 
the  weeks  of  the  summer  vacation  when  there  is  frequently 
nothing  definite  regularly  to  occupy  his  time,  and  there 
are  the  long  winter  evenings  when  even  study  will  not  suf- 
fice to  take  up  all  his  available  time.  More  often  than 
otherwise  he  is  left  to  himself  during  these  hours  and  days 
of  leisure,  and  what  he  does  to  occupy  the  time  affects 
materially  both  his  present  and  future  happiness  and  his 
character. 

One  of  our  most  respected  Southern  colleges  has,  among 
other  customs,  an  unwritten  tradition  that  the  young  fel- 
low just  out  of  high  school  and  entering  college  should  not 
be  found  loafing  around  the  "Corner,"  a  well-known  place 
with  its  own  particular  attractions  and  allurements  as  well 
as  its  own  particular  dangers.  The  reason  for  this  restric- 
tion, if  a  reason  were  necessary,  is,  no  doubt,  that  it  is  not 
thought  good  for  a  young  boy  to  begin  his  college  career 
by  cultivating  the  habit  of  loafing  on  street  corners  and 
picking  up  the  uncertain  acquaintances  wont  to  con- 
gregate in  such  places;  it  is  even  worse  for  a  high  school 
boy  so  to  occupy  his  time. 

If  any  one  in  our  town  wanted  to  find  Bert,  if  he  were 
not  in  school  or  at  home,  he  was  as  certain  to  be  located 

76 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  77 

at  the  pool  hall  as  his  father  on  Sunday  morning  was  sure  to 
be  found  at  church.  Bert  knew  no  other  recreation;  it  was 
his  particular  indoor  sport,  and  though  he  developed  no 
skill  in  pool  to  speak  of,  he  was  quite  content  to  spend  his 
money  and  waste  his  time  in  shooting  the  balls  into  a  pocket. 
He  has  no  other  recreation  today.  He  is  not  unique  in  any 
way.  If,  out  of  his  working  hours,  you  are  looking  for  any 
boy  with  whom  you  are  acquainted  there  is  quite  likely  to 
be  some  particular  corner  where  he  leans  against  the  wall, 
some  definite  place  which  draws  him,  some  sport  which 
makes  for  him  a  regular  and  an  irresistible  appeal,  a  man- 
dolin, or  a  golf  club,  or  a  billiard  cue  that  drops  readily  into 
his  hand.  As  I  go  down  town  every  day  after  my  work 
is  done,  I  can  usually  run  in  to  the  same  old  loafers  talking 
politics  or  whittling  the  store  boxes  that  cumber  the  side- 
walk, the  same  young  boys  doing  nothing  in  the  same 
places  or  kidding  the  girls  that  pass  by  on  the  street. 

A  certain  amount  of  leisure  is  necessary  for  everyone, 
man  or  boy.  All  work  and  no  play  not  only  makes  Jack  a 
dull  boy,  but  it  retards  his  development,  it  sours  his  disposi- 
tion, and  it  very  likely  turns  him  into  a  pretty  irritable  and 
unpleasant  companion.  No  one  can  work  all  the  time  with- 
out reducing  his  efficiency,  and  without  wearing  out  his 
nervous  system.  A  little  vacation,  even  if  it  is  only  an 
hour  or  two  in  the  woods  or  a  half  day  fishing  at  the  river, 
sends  one  back  to  his  work  rested  and  with  more  vim  and 
more  interest  and  enthusiasm.  I  have  no  doubt  that  a 
good  part  of  the  purpose  of  the  creator  when  he  inaugur- 


78  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

ated  the  custom  of  working  six  days  and  resting  the  seventh 
was  to  forestall  some  fool  man  who  would  probably  start 
the  custom  of  working  all  the  time  and  so  eliminate  vaca- 
tions and  reduce  the  general  efficiency  of  mankind.  As  a 
class,  we  Americans  have  too  few  leisure  hours. 

Of  course  growing  boys  need  more  leisure  time  than  do 
other  people.  They  are  only  beginning  to  develop  con- 
centration, their  bodies  tire,  and  they  grow  weary  very 
soon  of  doing  one  thing,  and  so  need  a  change;  their  high- 
strung  nervous  systems  need  relaxation,  and  they  are 
helped  in  the  development  of  self-reliance  by  being  left  for 
a  considerable  time  to  do  as  they  please.  One  has  only  to 
see  the  pinched,  white,  tired  faces  of  the  children  who  are 
ground  down  by  long  hours  of  toil  to  realize  how  it  dwarfs 
and  stunts  and  discourages  a  child  to  have  no  recreation,  to 
have  no  time  in  which  he  may  do  as  he  pleases.  The  boy 
with  no  leisure  is  robbed  of  his  youth;  and  youth  at  best 
is  all  too  short. 

It  is  really  astonishing,  however,  if  one  has  never  be- 
fore done  so,  to  discover  just  how  many  ho\irs  in  a  day  or 
a  week  or  a  month  one  has  at  his  own  disposal — in  fact 
just  how  much  time  one  wastes,  or  idles  away,  or  uses  for 
one's  own  pleasure  or  recreation;  and  boys  have  far  more 
than  other  and  older  people.  A  boy  came  to  see  me  not 
long  ago  who  was  complaining  because  he  had  so  much 
work  to  do  and  so  little  time  in  which  to  do  it,  so  much 
drudgery  and  so  little  leisure  in  which  to  enjoy  himself. 
His  was  the  common  complaint  of  young  boys. 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  79 

"I  haven't  a  minute,"  was  his  assertion. 

"Won't  you  keep  a  record  for  the  next  week,"  I  asked 
him,  "of  exactly  how  you  spend  the  twenty-four  hours  of 
the  day,  and  bring  it  back  to  me?  " 

I  gave  him  directions  as  to  how  the  time  should  be  di- 
vided :  so  much  for  meals,  so  much  for  sleeping,  so  much  for 
school  work  and  study,  and  so  on,  and  required  him  to  ac- 
count specifically  for  the  entire  twenty-four  hours  of  the 
day. 

"I  guess  I'm  not  working  as  much  as  I  thought,"  he 
said  when,  at  the  end  of  the  specified  time,  he  came  back 
again.  "I'm  a  good  deal  more  of  a  loafer  than  I  should 
have  been  willing  to  admit." 

His  record  showed,  as  yours  will  quite  likely  if  you  will 
take  the  trouble  to  investigate,  that  nearly  one-third  of  the 
twenty-four  hours  of  each  working  day,  and  much  more 
than  that  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays  was  taken  up 
either  with  doing  very  trifling  things  or  in  actually  doing 
nothing.  He  had  considerable  leisure,  but  he  was  wasting 
it.  If  the  boy  who  thinks  he  has  little  or  no  leisure  time 
will  make  a  similar  experiment,  he  may  have  his  eyes 
opened.  The  undeniable  fact  is  that  most  of  us  waste  our 
leisure;  we  get  out  of  it  neither  pleasure  nor  profit. 

There  are  few  things  which  more  accurately  reveal 
your  character  than  the  use  that  you  make  of  your  leisure 
time  or  would  make  of  it  if  you  could  follow  your  own  de- 
sires. If  for  the  next  twenty-four  hours  you  could  do  as 
you  please,  go  where  you  want  to,  and  be  asked  no  ques- 


80  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

tions,  what  would  you  do?  Some  boys  would  go  fishing, 
some  would  read  a  book  or  build  something.  I  know  boys 
who  would  stay  in  bed  sleeping  most  of  the  time  and  others 
who  would  not  go  to  bed  at  all;  some  would  play  a  game 
or  take  a  trip,  and  some  would  do  things  about  which  they 
would  not  care  to  speak.  It  might  be  very  interesting  for 
every  boy  to  think  the  question  out  for  himself  and  to 
answer  it. 

Many  people,  boj'^s  and  men,  are  quite  at  a  loss  to  know 
what  to  do  with  leisure  time  and  quite  upset  if  unexpect- 
edly they  are  confronted  with  an  hour  or  two  of  leisure 
and  are  separated  from  their  ordinary  entertainment. 
Many  are  like  the  old  citizen  in  an  isolated  New  England 
village,  who  being  asked  what  he  did  in  the  winter  when 
the  summer  tourists  with  whom  he  employed  his  time  had 
gone,  replied, 

"Wal,  mostly  I  set  and  think;  and  sometimes  I  jest  set." 

Those  who  have  not  trained  themselves  to  think,  who 
have  no  resourcefulness  when  left  to  their  own  devices, 
are  sometimes  forced  merely  to  "set,"  and  to  find  little 
pleasure  in  leisure  time  and  no  incentive  to  thought. 

Coming  into  Atlanta  one  Sunday  morning  not  long  ago, 
I  had  as  a  seatmate  an  intelligent  looking  man  of  middle 
age  who  was  bemoaning  the  fact  that  he  was  to  have  an 
unoccupied  day  in  a  city  with  which  he  was  not  familiar. 
Only  two  possible  solutions  of  the  problem  as  how  best  to 
spend  a  tiresome  day  suggested  themselves  to  him — the 
Sunday  newspaper  and  sleep.    Church,  music,  books,  the 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  81 

woods,  a  quiet  walk — none  of  these  made  any  appeal  to 
him.  He  only  yawned,  bored  at  the  mere  thought  that 
here  was  a  whole  day  at  his  disposal  and  positively  nothing 
to  do.  It  was  really  sad  to  realize  that  here  was  a  man 
whose  life  was  more  than  half  gone  and  who,  when  left 
to  himself,  was  helpless  to  enjoy  it.  Some  time  I  intend 
to  write  an  article  on  how  to  spend  one's  time  enjoy  ably 
in  railroad  stations. 

One  of  the  most  unhappy  men  I  know  has  an  attrac- 
tive home,  a  comfortable  income,  and  much  leisure.  He 
is  not  harassed  by  hard  toil  or  the  fear  of  poverty;  but  he 
does  not  know  how  to  spend  his  leisure.  He  has  not  cul- 
tivated any  special  friendships  with  people,  or  interest  in 
them,  he  does  not  find  enjoyment  in  reading,  he  takes  no 
pleasure  in  the  beautiful  birds,  and  flowers,  and  trees  with 
which  he  is  surrounded.  He  plays  no  games,  finds  no 
comfort  in  exercise,  and  is  at  his  wits  end  when  he  has 
read  the  Breeders'  Gazette  and  the  village  newspaper. 
Like  the  New  England  farmer  the  most  that  he  does  is 
just  to  ''set."  A  boy  should  cultivate  as  many  interests 
as  possible,  should  find  a  hundred  interesting  and  profitable 
ways  to  employ  his  leisure  time.  In  doing  so  he  will  be 
happier  and  wiser  now,  and  more  useful  and  happy  later 
in  life. 

A  boy's  greatest  danger  and  his  greatest  temptation 
comes  not  while  he  is  at  work,  not  while  he  is  busy  with 
something  that  keeps  his  brain  and  his  hands  employed 
but  when  he  is  free  to  do  as  he  pleases,  when  his  time  is 


82  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

his  own  and  when  he  does  not  know  quite  what  to  do  with 
it,  when  he  is  out  from  under  any  direction  but  his  own 
personal  desires.  It  is  only  another  illustration  of  Satan 
finding  work  for  idle  hands  to  do.  Practically  every  bad 
habit  that  a  boy  develops,  every  moral  misstep  that  he 
makes,  may  be  traced  to  the  misuse  of  leisure  time.  Any 
boy  who  has  learned  to  smoke  or  to  swear  or  to  drink  or  to 
gamble  or  to  be  dishonest  or  to  associate  with  vulgar  or 
lewd  women  will  admit,  if  he  will  recall  his  first  offen?e, 
that  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  he  slipped  at  some  vacation 
time,  or  at  some  time  when  he  was  free  from  the  regular 
obligations  of  his  daily  work  and  with  other  fellows  was 
left  to  his  own  devices.  It  is  a  story  generally  of  "nothing 
to  do"  and  "out  for  a  time." 

That  was  Tom  Brown's  experience  as  told  in  the  story 
with  which  every  high  school  boy  is  familiar.  He  was 
saved,  fortunately,  from  the  great  temptation,  but  it  was 
more  through  good  luck  than  good  management.  If 
Arthur  Donnithorne  had  had  more  to  do,  if  his  leisure 
time  had  been  spent  in  something  besides  idleness  and  the 
pursuit  of  selfish  pleasure,  the  tragedy  of  Hetty  Sorrel 
in  Adam  Bede  might  very  easily  have  been  averted. 

There  is  a  good  reason  for  this  condition  of  affairs.  A 
boy  relaxes  at  vacation  time,  he  lets  down,  he  is  somewhat 
off  his  guard,  and  he  therefore  is  more  open  to  suggestion. 
It  is  at  week  ends,  and  Christmas  time,  and  summer  vaca- 
tions, it  is  on  the  night  when  he  is  allowed  to  stay  out  after 
his  regular  bed  time  that  the  temptation  comes.    He  wants 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  83 

to  be  a  "good  fellow,"  he  can  not  bear  to  be  thought  a 
quitter;  when  something  a  little  daring  or  risque  is  pro- 
posed, he  often  lacks  the  courage  to  stand  out  against  it, 
and  the  inevitable  happens.  Disease  and  drunkenness 
and  irregularities  of  all  sorts  are  far  more  imminent  at 
vacations  than  at  any  other  time.  The  most  dangerous 
times  are  when  he  is  excited  by  victory  or  depressed  by 
defeat  or  when  he  has  so  much  leisure  on  his  hands  that 
he  grows  bored  with  it  and  must  break  loose  into  the  ir- 
regular in  order  to  relieve  his  pent-up  feelings.  I  believe 
in  athletics,  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  athletic  con- 
test is  responsible  for  a  good  many  boyish  derelictions, 
because  the  excitement  of  victory  or  the  despondency  of 
defeat  throws  the  boy  out  of  himself  for  the  time  being 
and  makes  him  an  easy  victim  to  the  temptations  which 
are  always  lying  in  wait. 

It  is  nearly  always  an  unfortunate  thing  for  a  boy  to 
have  no  regular  duties  or  responsibilities  aside  from  his 
school  work.  The  most  unhappy  and  the  most  discon- 
tented' boys  I  know,  the  laziest  and  the  most  dissipated, 
are  those  whose  time  before  and  after  school  is  at  their 
own  disposal.  They  are  likely  to  develop  habits  of  ex- 
travagance, to  become  spendthrifts  and  loafers,  and  the 
loafer  is  generally  ready  for  any  sort  of  proposition  that 
may  come  up  that  will  give  him  a  new  sensation  or  a 
novel  experience,  immoral  or  otherwise.  Even  if  the  boy 
with  unlimited  leisure  develops  the  habit  of  reading,  which 
in  itself  is  a  very  creditable  one,  his  tendency  will  be  to  be- 


84  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

come  something  of  a  recluse,  to  shut  himself  in,  and  to 
grow  pale  and  round  shouldered  and  out  of  touch  with 
other  fellows  of  his  age.  Every  growing  boy  is  better  off 
for  having  some  regular  work  to  do,  something  physical, 
if  possible,  that  will  harden  his  muscles  and  develop  his 
strength  and  teach  him  to  assume  responsibility.  Boys 
usually  have  to  learn  to  like  work  as  they  learn  to  like 
olives,  by  keeping  at  it  until  their  taste  is  developed.  I 
know  too  many  boys  who  would  feel  humiliated  to  be 
caught  washing  the  car,  or  mowing  the  lawn,  or  taking 
care  of  the  furnace,  but  any  boy,  no  matter  what  the  fi- 
nancial standing  of  his  father  may  be,  is  made  stronger  and 
more  manly  and  more  dependable  and  happier,  if  he  has 
a  steady  regular  job  to  take  up  a  part  of  his  leisure  time, 
and  to  teach  him  the  dignity  of  labor  and  the  value  of 
money.  I  have  never  known  anyone,  boy  or  man,  who 
lost  caste  by  working,  or  who  on  the  other  hand  was  not 
helped  by  doing  so. 

In  conjunction  with  too  much  leisure  or  leisure  that  is 
largely  without  occupation,  too  much  spending  money  is 
a  bad  thing  for  a  boy.  When  a  boy  has  so  much  money 
at  his  disposal  that  he  needs  to  give  little  thought  to  his 
expenditures,  he  is  likely  to  grow  selfish,  to  fall  into  ex- 
travagances, if  not  to  drift  into  worse  things.  It  is  an  un- 
comfortable situation  for  a  boy  to  have  too  little  money 
or  less  than  the  fellows  with  whom  he  regularly  associates; 
it  is  a  dangerous  one  for  him  to  have  so  much  that  he  can 
daily  gratify  his  appetites  or  satisfy  his  desires  for  pleas- 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  85 

ure.  If  he  does  not  learn  while  he  is  young  to  make  some 
sort  of  sacrifice  and  to  deny  hunself,  he  will  not  find  it 
easy  later  in  life. 

Granted  that  there  is  danger  to  the  young  boy  who  has 
a  considerable  amount  of  leisure,  there  is,  also,  to  the  one 
who  will  use  it  wisely,  a  great  opportunity.  Most  men  who 
have  come  up  from  poverty  and  ignorance  to  positions  of 
financial  responsibility  and  intellectual  attainment  have 
done  so  through  the  regular  and  wise  utilization  of  their 
leisure  time.  One  of  the  best  French  scholars  I  know  got 
all  his  preliminary  knowledge  during  his  leisure  hours  in 
the  army  when  he  was  only  a  young  boy.  The  biographies 
of  well-known  men  furnish  innumerable  illustrations  of 
boys  who,  with  little  encouragement  and  less  opportunity, 
by  using  their  leisure  hours  wisely  made  themselves  ready 
for  positions  which  would  not  otherwise  have  been  open 
to  them. 

There  are  various  ways  in  which  the  high  school  boy 
may  utilize  his  leisure  time.  He  may  use  it,  as  too  many 
boys  do,  in  the  pursuit  of  so-called  pleasures  that  are  ac- 
tually injurious  to  his  health  and  to  his  character.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  specify  all  of  the  things  which  are  a  real 
injury  to  a  young  fellow;  one  may  be  pretty  well  assured, 
however,  that  when  the  high  school  boy  is  out  every  night 
of  the  week  until  long  after  he  should  be  in  bed,  what- 
ever he  may  be  doing,  he  is  not  attending  Sunday  school. 
When  boys  are  found  nightly  hanging  about  street  corners 
or  talking  to  careless  silly  girls,  they  are  not  picking  up 


86  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

information  that  will  be  of  any  particular  service  to  them 
or  developing  habits  that  will  better  fit  them  for  citizen- 
ship. Few  boys  develop  vicious  or  immoral  habits  with 
the  idea  of  continuing  them.  It  is  the  fling  of  the  moment, 
they  say,  and  they  promise  themselves  and  their  friends, 
often,  that  their  derelictions  are  to  be  short  lived.  Ex- 
perience shows,  however,  that  the  high  school  boy  who 
even  for  a  brief  period  falls  into  questionable  habits  finds 
it  no  easy  matter  to  separate  himself  from  them.  Ex- 
periences of  all  sorts,  at  his  age,  sink  deep  into  his  con- 
sciousness and  are  hard  to  eradicate — psychologists  tell 
us  that  such  impressions  are  eradicated  with  far  more 
difficulty  than  are  those  which  come  later  in  life.  For- 
tunately, the  larger  percentage  of  boys  are  saved  from 
such  experiences. 

Most  of  the  young  boys  whom  I  know  do  not  spend 
their  time  viciously  but  foolishly.  They  are  not  during 
their  leisure  developing  useful  knowledge  or  physical 
strength,  or  cultivating  habits  or  tasks  that  yield  them 
much  present  gratification  or  insure  future  happiness  or 
usefulness,  most  of  their  activities  being  only  momentary 
gratification. 

"What  did  you  do  yesterday,  before  and  after  school?" 
I  asked  Ftank  a  few  days  ago.  Frank  is  aged  seven- 
teen and  is  making  a  feeble  attempt  to  get  through  the 
junior  year  in  high  school.  His  father  is  a  well-to-do 
citizen  who  has  established  himself  in  his  present  busi- 
ness by  long  and  consistent  hard  work.    He  usually  looks 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  87 

after  his  own  furnace  and  occasionally  mows  his  own 
lawn.  I  have  even  caught  him  washing  his  car  or  putting 
up  the  screens  to  his  house.  Frank  has  unlimited  leisure 
and  doesn't  know  a  lawn  mower  from  a  cream  separator. 
He  knows  how  to  drive  a  car  but  is  ignorant  of  even 
the  crudest  methods  of  washing  it.  He  is  always  well 
dressed  and  spends  money  freely.  He  is,  in  fact,  a  very 
pleasant  and  a  very  popular  boy.  He  spends  his  leisure 
time  as  most  boys  in  his  class  do. 

"I  slept  so  late  in  the  morning,"  was  his  reply,  "that 
by  missing  my  breakfast  I  barely  had  time  to  get  to 
school  for  my  first  recitation.  At  lunch  time  Paul  and 
I  went  down  to  Harris'  and  had  an  egg  malted  milk. 
After  our  last  recitation  for  the  day  we  had  another 
drink  and  then  went  to  the  movies.  We  fooled  round 
until  dinner  time  and  took  a  ride  in  the  car  until  bed 
time.  In  fact,  I  guess  it  was  a  little  after  bed  time,  for 
as  nearly  as  I  remember  it  was  about  one  a.  m.  when  I 
rolled  in." 

And  this  is  not  unusual;  it  is  his  regular  program.  He 
seldom  if  ever  studies;  he  has  no  interest  in  athletics; 
he  does  not  look  into  a  newspaper;  he  never  reads  a  book. 
The  car  and  sentimental  girls  and  ice  cream  parlors 
and  moving  picture  shows  take  up  practically  all  of  his 
leisure  time  which  is  not  given  over  to  lying  in  bed,  or 
strumming  a  ukelele.    It  is  a  gay  and  carefree  life  he  lives! 

There  is  little  harm,  possibly,  in  racing  a  motor  car 
about  town,   but  it  is,  in   the  long  run,   an  expensive 


88  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

pastime  if  it  is  not  sometimes  a  dangerous  one.  It  is 
the  young  boy,  usually,  who  exceeds  the  speed  limit. 
I  can  see  little  real  profit  or  permanent  good  in  most 
of  the  vaudeville  or  moving  picture  shows.  The  plays 
which  appear  regularly  on  the  screen  are  frequently 
full  of  questionable  suggestions  if  they  are  not  actually 
vulgar,  and  at  best  they  are  unlikely  often  to  aid  in 
the  development  of  either  good  taste  or  good  morals; 
and  yet  there  are  many  young  boys  in  almost  every  town 
who  would  be  unhappy  and  discontented  if  they  did  not 
attend  at  least  one  show  a  day,  and  I  know  many  who 
during  the  summer  time  go  twice  a  day.  There  are  far 
better  ways  of  spending  leisure  time,  and  ways  which 
will  bring  more  satisfactory  returns  both  to  the  young  boy 
and  to  the  man  that  he  will  later  become. 

I  was  visiting  not  long  ago  in  a  part  of  the  United 
States  with  whose  trees  and  birds  and  flowers  I  had 
previously  not  been  familiar.  These  things  were  to 
me  both  curious  and  interesting,  and  I  asked  a  good 
many  direct  questions  about  them.  Only  one  of  the 
six  or  eight  boys  with  whom  I  was  walking  about 
could  give  me  any  satisfactory  information  as  to  the 
names  of  the  trees  or  the  birds  or  the  flowers  with  which 
I  was  not  familiar  though  they  were  all  intelligent  in 
general  matters,  were  graduates  of  good  high  schools, 
and  had  lived  in  the  community  all  their  lives. 

Some  of  them  ventured  a  guess,  but  in  every  case, 
as  I  remember,  they  guessed  incorrectly.     They  were 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  89 

a  little  annoyed  finally  at  their  apparent  ignorance, 
and  one  of  them  determined  to  show  me  that  he  was 
not  wholly  unfamiliar  with  the  flora  of  his  region.  As 
we  were  passing  through  a  park,  he  pointed  out  a  bed 
of  flowers  saying,  "Well,  I  know  what  those  flowers 
are,  anyway:  they're  phlox."  He  was  really  mistaken, 
though  I  did  not  have  the  courage  to  tell  him  so,  for  they 
were  petunias. 

Now,  a  boy  who  is  fifteen  years  of  age  and  who  has 
spent  any  considerable  time  out  of  doors  ought  to  have 
had  interest  and  curiosity  enough  to  learn  the  names 
of  the  plants  which  he  has  seen  growing  about  him  every 
day,  he  ought  to  be  as  familiar  with  common  trees  and 
shrubs  as  he  is  with  the  people  whom  he  meets  daily 
on  the  street.  If  he  had  such  knowledge,  it  would  en- 
liven every  quiet  walk  which  he  might  take,  it  would 
give  interest  to  every  journey  and  help  to  dispel  lone- 
someness  and  gloom;  for  every  bird  in  the  hedges,  every 
vine  and  shrub  and  flower  which  he  would  see  from  the 
car  window,  would  seem  like  meeting  an  old  friend  on 
the  streets  of  a  strange  city.  The  reasons  why  boys 
find  so  little  pleasure  in  long  walks  into  the  country 
or  in  quiet  strolls  in  the  woods  when  there  is  no  girl 
along,  is  because  they  meet  little  or  nothing  that  is  inter- 
esting or  familiar;  they  lack  the  information  and  the 
training  necessary  to  bring  them  pleasure,  though  it  is 
information  which  might  very  easily  be  obtained. 

There  is  no  method  of  occupying  one's  leisure  time 


90  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

that  will  bring  more  present  and  permanent  pleasure 
to  a  boy  than  reading.  Few  boys  read  the  newspapers? 
and  those  who  do  generally  confine  themselves  to  the 
cartoons  and  the  sporting  page.  I  shall  have  more  in 
in  detail  to  say  about  this  subject  in  another  article, 
so  that  I  shall  simply  content  myself  with  saying  here, 
that  part,  at  least,  of  a  boy's  leisure  every  day  should 
be  devoted  to  general  reading  that  will  stimulate  his 
imagination,  keep  him  inforaied  on  what  is  going  on  in 
the  world  to-day  and  what  was  going  on  centuries  ago. 

The  boy  or  the  man  who  reads  is  always  safer  and 
happier  and  has  a  great  advantage  over  his  companion 
who  does  not  do  so.  He  has  a  possibility  of  general  in- 
telligence not  open  to  other  boys. 

Men  who  have  not  learned  to  take  regular  exercise 
while  they  are  boys  are  little  likely  to  do  so  later  in  life, 
and  the  adult  man  who  engages  in  no  regular  exercise 
or  who  does  not  play  with  some  sort  of  skill  an  athletic 
out-of-door  game  will  grow  old  and  ineffective  earlier 
in  life  than  would  otherwise  be  the  case,  will  grow  wide 
of  girth  or  slow  on  his  feet  even  if  he  does  not  actually 
break  down.  There  is  nothing  like  exercise  for  keeping 
one  young  and  active.  The  youngest  old  man  that  I 
know,  in  some  ways  a  boy  still  at  eighty,  has  played 
every  day  for  many  years,  and  is  still  playing,  a  vigorous 
athletic  game. 

Few  people  will  keep  up  an  interest  in  any  athletic 
game  in  which  they  do  not  show  some  skill.    Everybody 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  91 

who  is  normal  likes  to  beat  rather  than  to  be  beaten, 
and  skill  in  almost  any  game  which  requires  physical 
alertness,  unless  it  be  golf,  is  seldom  developed  unless 
one  begins  in  youth.  Further  than  this,  if  one  waits 
until  he  is  out  of  high  school  or  college  before  he  takes 
up  any  athletic  recreation  he  is  likely  to  argue  and  to 
prove  the  point  to  himself,  that  he  has  not  time  for  such 
foolishness;  his  business  is  too  exacting,  his  responsibil- 
ities are  too  great,  things  generally  would  go  to  the  bow- 
wows  if  he  took  the  time  to  learn  what  his  better  judgment 
tells  him  would  be  the  best  thing  in  the  world  for  him. 
The  high  school  boy  has  no  such  excuse.  He  has  plenty 
of  time,  he  would  be  immeasurably  benefited  by  such 
exercise  both  now  and  later  in  life,  and  the  development 
of  skill  is  for  him  so  much  more  possible  than  for 
an  older  man.  There  are  few  boys,  no  matter  how  thin 
or  fat,  heavy  or  light,  tall  or  short,  who  could  not  by 
persistence  develop  skill  beyond  the  commonplace  in 
some  sort  of  healthy  athletic  activity,  and  who  would 
not  from  such  development  derive  the  greatest  pleasure 
and  profit  from  the  mere  joy  of  contest;  from  physical 
strength  developed,  from  friendships  formed,  from  self- 
reliance  gained  through  the  defeat  of  some  opponent. 
Leisure  time  spent  in  the  development  of  a  strong  healthy 
body  will  pay  as  high  an  interest  on  the  time  invested 
as  anything  which  a  high  school  boy  can  engage  in.  It 
will  develop  in  him  moral  stamina  and  control;  it  will 
often  bring  him  the  respect  and  the  admiration  of  his  fel- 


92  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

lows  and  a  physical  reserve  which  will  be  to  him  a  god- 
send when  he  needs  to  call  upon  it  in  the  emergencies 
which  come  sooner  or  later  to  all  men. 

I  have  a  neighbor,  a  man  of  education  and  of  ordinary 
intelligence,  who  is  constantly  in  mechanical  difficulties. 
If  a  faucet  leaks,  he  is  quite  at  sea  as  to  what  ought  to 
be  done  to  adjust  it;  if  his  car  gets  out  of  order,  he  is 
as  mugh  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  fix  it  as  is  his  ten-year- 
old  son — more  at  a  loss,  perhaps,  for  the  boy  is  learning 
to  use  his  hands;  he  can  not  drive  a  nail  or  stoke  a  furnace, 
or  make  anything  run  that  is  out  of  order.  If  anything 
mechanical  gets  out  of  fix,  he  stands  around  as  helpless 
as  an  infant.  He  did  not  when  a  boy  learn  to  use  his  hands 
or  to  cultivate  any  mechanical  skill. 

Every  boy  of  high  school  age  should  learn  to  make 
things  and  should  develop  curiosity  enough  to  want 
to  know  how  mechanical  things  are  put  together  and  how 
they  run.  Tools  should  not  have  an  awkward  feeling 
in  his  hands;  he  should  be  able  to  bore  a  straight  hole, 
to  put  in  a  screw  correctly,  to  saw  a  board  evenly,  and 
so  to  adjust  a  lawn  mower  that  it  will  give  the  lawn  a 
smooth,  even  hair  cut.  If  he  has  access  to  a  motor 
car  he  ought  to  figure  out  its  mechanism  intelligently 
enough  to  understand  how  to  keep  it  in  order  and  what 
to  do  for  it  when  it  refuses  to  work  properly.  I  know 
boys  who  have  had  cars  for  years  who  are  as  confused 
and  helpless  when  they  look  under  the  hood  as  they 
would  be  if  they  were  asked  to  translate  a  language  with 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  93 

which  they  were  unfamiliar;  they  have  not  used  their 
leisure  time  to  advantage;  and  yet  these  are  the  things 
which  any  intelligent  boy  could  learn,  and  the  knowledge 
of  which  would  be  a  great  asset  to  him  both  in  pleasure 
and  in  usefulness. 

There  is  the  opportunity,  also,  which  every  boy  has 
during  his  leisure  time  for  the  cultivation  of  friendships, 
for  the  understanding  of  other  boys,  for  the  development 
of  relationships  which  will  continue  throughout  his  whole 
life.  I  do  not  undervalue  the  good  effects  which  come  from 
a  boy's  association  with  girls;  in  another  place  I  shall 
speak  of  these  somewhat  more  at  length.  I  believe,  how- 
ever, that  the  value  of  a  boy's  healthy  association  with 
other  boys  is  much  greater  to  him  during  his  high  school 
days  than  any  other  association  he  may  have.  Time 
spent  in  acquiring  friends  and  in  learning  to  know  and  to 
understand  them  is  usually  well  spent.  As  I  go  back  now 
over  a  period  of  forty  years  I  find  no  greater  satisfaction 
than  in  the  recollection  that  I  came  to  know  a  few  boys 
well,  that  our  friendships  deepened  as  time  went  on,  and 
if  I  could  choose  today  whom  of  all  of  my  friends  from 
whom  I  am  now  separated  by  time  and  distance  I  should 
most  like  to  see,  and  with  whom  I  should  soonest  drop 
into  the  old  time  relationship,  it  would  be  a  boy  whom  I 
knew  first  in  district  school,  with  whom  I  later  prepared 
for  college,  and  who  was  for  two  years  in  college  my  closest 
friend.  I  see  him  now  only  at  rare  intervals,  for  we  are 
separated  by  a  thousand  miles  or  more,  but  I  am  sure  that 


94  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

the  leisure  time  in  childhood  and  youth  and  early  man- 
hood I  spent  with  him  was  well  spent  and  brought  me  hap- 
piness then  and  leaves  me  a  pleasant  memory  today.  The 
experience  I  had  so  long  ago,  any  other  boy  can  have  if 
he  gives  himself  to  it. 

For  most  of  us,  boys  or  men,  there  are  set  tasks  which 
occupy  definite  portions  of  time.  During  these  periods 
we  are  largely  the  creatures  of  routine;  lessons  or  routine 
duties,  or  business  of  one  sort  or  another  come  to  us  reg- 
ularly throughout  the  day,  and  we  have  little  or  no  choice 
but  to  do  them  and  to  ask  no  questions.  We  may  each  of 
us  exercise  a  certain  amount  of  discretion  or  individuality 
in  the  doing  of  this  work,  but  in  the  main  it  is  put  before 
us  without  our  asking,  and  it  is  done  today  in  much  the 
same  way  as  it  was  yesterday.  It  is  only  when  it  comes  to 
our  leisure  time  that  the  choice  of  how  it  may  be  em- 
ployed is  ours.  We  are  never  so  much  our  real  selves  as 
during  our  leisure  hours.  Eliminating  the  leisure  time 
which  falls  to  every  high  school  boy  during  the  five  working 
days  of  the  week,  there  is  always  Saturday  and  Sunday 
in  which  he  is  pretty  free  to  follow  his  own  tactics.  He 
can  spend  his  time  in  things  that  are  trifling  or  useless  or 
even  harmful.  He  can  sleep,  or,  what  is  equally  bad  if 
not  worse,  he  can  sit  around  doing  absolutely  nothing  but 
chatter  and  gossip  and  loaf.  But  life  is  too  short  even  to 
waste  it  in  youth;  there  are  too  many  pleasant  and  profit- 
able things  to  do,  and  it  is  some  of  these  that  in  these  para- 
graphs I  have  attempted  to  suggest.     Every  boy  must 


THE  LEISURE  HOUR  95 

have  pleasure,  but  it  should  be  healthful  and  stimulating; 
it  should  send  him  back  to  the  regular  work  which  is  his 
to  do,  stronger,  healthier,  cleaner,  with  greater  energy  and 
greater  ambition.  If  from  your  leisure  hours  you  come 
to  your  regular  work  listless  and  yawning  and  without 
ambition  or  pleasure  at  the  thought  of  work,  if  your  pleas- 
ure has  left  you  tired  and  irritable,  if  your  recreation, 
however  you  spend  it,  has  not  in  some  way  made  you  a 
better  boy  and  better  prepared  you  for  your  work,  then  it 
has  not  been  spent  as  it  should  have  been.  You  should 
work  it  out  some  other  way. 


BOOKS  AND  READING 

Printing,  which  is  not  such  an  ancient  art  after  all, 
helped  very  much  to  make  books  more  plentiful.  Before 
printing  was  invented  the  man  outside  of  the  Church  who 
owned  a  book  or  who  could  get  at  one  easily  was  almost  as 
rare  as  the  man  who  kept  a  pet  elephant.  There  were  not 
many  books,  and  those  there  were,  were  hard  to  get  at  and 
had  few  readers.  The  ability  to  read  was  not  so  common  as 
today,  for  schools  were  not  run  at  public  expense,  and 
education  was  not  general  and  was  not  compulsory.  Books 
were  laboriously  lettered  by  hand  and  bound  with  great 
care.  It  took  a  long  time  to  make  a  book.  Sometimes  they 
were  chained  to  the  table  upon  which  they  lay,  so  that 
people  might  have  an  opportunity  to  read  them  and  yet 
not  be  able  to  carry  them  away.  The  reading  habit  was, 
therefore,  not  a  common  one. 

Even  after  printing  was  introduced,  books  did  not  at 
once  become  plentiful.  For  generations,  the  daily  news- 
paper was  almost  unthought  of.  When  it  was  established, 
it  had  little  circulation  excepting  in  cities,  and  neither 
newspapers  nor  books  were  generally  to  be  found  in  the 
houses  of  the  common  people.  They  could  not  afford 
them,  and  they  did  not  realize  either  the  pleasure  or  the 
benefits  of  reading. 

Respect  for  books,  even  within  the  experience  of  our 

96 


BOOKS  AND  READING  97 

grandparents,  was  much  greater  than  it  now  is.  It  was 
a  signal  honor  to  be  given  a  book.  When  as  a  boy  of  ten 
Jim  Justice,  our  neighbor  boy,  won  a  copy  of  Robinson 
Crusoe  as  a  prize  for  regular  attendance  at  school,  he  was 
looked  upon  almost  with  as  much  respect  as  today 
is  accorded  the  returning  soldier  who  has  won  the  Dis- 
tinguished Service  Medal.  It  is  not  so  in  these  times. 
Books  are  too  common;  they  are  too  easily  obtained  and 
too  generally  at  our  disposal. 

I  ran  across  grandmother's  geography  this  morning. 
The  Village  Elementary  Geography,  standing  primly 
beside  Bob's  First  Year  Latin  Lessons,  on  our  book- 
shelves. Bob  is  mj^  nephew  who  is  in  high  school.  Grand- 
mother's book  is  yellowed  with  age,  but,  save  for  a  few 
thumb  prints,  the  pages  are  clean  and  without  dog  ears. 
It  is  still  covered  with  the  bright  calico  which  her  grand- 
mother sewed  on  for  her  to  keep  the  book  from  being 
soiled  or  injured  when  the  little  girl  carried  it  to  school. 
Grandmother's  name  and  the  date  is  on  the  flyleaf  writ- 
ten in  a  cramped  childish  hand,  for  grandmother  was 
only  eight  when  she  got  the  book,  and  the  date  is  near 
the  beginning  of  the  last  century.  She  always  handled 
the  book  with  the  greatest  care,  for  they  had  respect 
for  books  in  those  days. 

Robert's  book  presents  a  somewhat  different  appear- 
ance. It  was  bought  only  a  few  months  ago,  but  the 
cover  is  torn  and  battered  and  hangs  by  a  thread.  Inside, 
the  pages  are  mutilated  or  missing,  and  pen  sketches 


98  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

and  hieroglyphics  are  scrawled  across  the  text  making 
it  almost  unreadable.  As  I  turn  through,  I  find  the 
dignified  Cicero  wearing  a  sombrero  and  smoking  a  pipe, 
and  Csesar  with  a  beard  done  in  India  ink.  The  book 
has  suffered  every  insult  and  indignity  possible  to  be 
thought  of  by  a  boy  of  fourteen.  Robert  knows  more 
than  grandmother  did  at  his  age,  but  neither  he  nor 
the  children  with  whom  he  associates  have  the  love  and 
respect  for  books  that  grandmother  had  as  a  girl. 

As  for  me  I  should  as  soon  see  a  dear  friend  abused 
as  a  book  I  have  worked  with  and  come  to  know  and  to 
understand.  I  do  not  mind  the  ordinary  wear  of  use 
and  age  any  more  than  I  am  annoyed  by  wrinkles  in 
the  faces  of  my  friends  who  are  growing  old,  but  inten- 
tional indignities  hurt  me. 

Is  it  because  books  are  so  plentiful  or  so  cheap  that 
we  care  so  little  about  them?  Is  it  because  they  cost 
us  now  no  sacrifice,  no  struggle,  no  tender  thought  or 
anxious  anticipation  that  we  think  of  them  so  lightly 
and  toss  them  about  so  carelessly?  I  have  heard  grand- 
mother tell  of  how  happy  she  was  and  how  proud  when 
her  father  first  put  the  little  geography  into  her  hands. 
Neither  high  school  nor  college  students  often  feel  so 
today. 

The  story  of  Lincoln,  unable  to  find  a  half  dozen  books 
in  the  community  in  which  he  lived  and  willing  to  work 
days  in  order  that  he  might  become  the  owner  of  a  worn 
and    rain-soaked    volume    of    biography    seems    almost 


BOOKS  AND  READING  99 

unbelievable  to  the  young  boy  of  today  who  spends 
his  money  freely  on  moving  picture  shows  and  ice  cream 
sodas,  but  who  would  seldom  go  far  or  suffer  much  to 
get  a  book,  and  who,  in  fact,  is  often  bored  if  he  is  called 
upon  to  read  one. 

Books  were  never  so  readily  within  the  reach  of  all 
as  today;  newspapers  were  never  before  so  abundant 
and  so  full  of  varied  information  as  at  the  present  time; 
a  bulky  and  profusely  illustrated  magazine  that  will 
keep  one  reading  for  many  hours,  may  be  bought  for 
a  dime.  There  is  no  one  so  poor  that  he  can  not  buy 
reading  matter,  or  there  are  not  many  who  are  not 
now  within  reasonable  distance  of  libraries  with  free 
access  to  the  most  varied  assortment  of  books  and 
newspapers.  Few  people,  in  this  country  at  least,  can 
assert  truthfully  that  there  is  nothing  for  them  to 
read.  No  doubt  the  very  abundance  of  books,  the  ease 
with  which  we  get  at  them,  causes  us  to  value  them  less 
than  we  otherwise  should  and  to  respect  them  less.  That 
which  is  most  difficult  is  obtain  is  most  valued.  Tom 
Sawyer  recognized  this  fact  when  he  had  the  garden 
fence  whitewashed  by  his  eager  pals.  If  we  had  fewer 
books  we  should  think  more  highly  of  books  and  respect 
them  more.  We  see  them  scattered  about  us  so  abundantly 
that  we  take  them  like  automobiles  and  aeroplanes  as 
a  matter  of  course. 

If  a  high  school  boy  does  not  have  the  reading  habit  it 
is  certainly  not  from  lack  of  opportunity  to  acquire  it.    In 


100  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

the  elementary  school  and  high  school  curriculum  more 
time  is  given  to  English,  including  reading,  grammar, 
literature,  and  composition,  than  to  any  other  two  or 
three  subjects  in  the  school  course  combined.  Perhaps  the 
reason  why  young  people  read  so  badly  when  called  upon 
orally  to  interpret  a  page,  and  care  so  little  for  reading,  is 
that  they  have  so  much  of  it.  We  can  all  become  sated 
with  the  most  delightful  things;  I  have  known  boys  who 
ate  so  much  cake  and  ice  cream  that  they  never  wanted 
any  again. 

Another  reason,  perhaps,  why  high  school  and  college  stu- 
dents (for  the  difficulty  is  not  confined  to  the  high  school) 
read  so  badly  and  take  so  little  pleasure  in  reading  is  be- 
cause all  through  their  school  life  their  taste  is  forced,  they 
are  made  to  read  what  is  far  beyond  their  ability  to  under- 
stand and  to  enjoy,  and  they  are  taught  to  cultivate 
critical  judgment  rather  than  appreciation.  They  analyze 
what  they  read  when  they  should  be  allowed  to  give  them- 
selves over  to  the  pleasure  of  reading.  They  attempt  to  be 
critics  rather  than  lovers  of  books.  They  are  told  what  is 
good  and  what  effect  it  should  have  upon  their  minds 
and  their  emotions,  and  they  play  the  hypocrite  often 
by  pretending  to  feel  what  they  are  told  they  should 
feel. 

"What  do  you  think,"  I  asked  my  fourteen-year-old 
boys  in  Sunday  School  a  few  years  ago,  "is  the  best  book 
in  the  world?  What  is  the  best  book  you  ever  read?" 

"The  Bible,"  one  boy  piously  answered. 


BOOKS  AND  READING  lOi 

"Shakspere's  Macbeth,"  another  literary  hypocrite 
shouted  waving  his  hand  in  the  air.  Not  one  of  the  boys 
told  the  truth;  they  were  afraid  to  do  so.  Down  in  their 
hearts  they  were  really  enshrining  Huckleberry  Finn  or  one 
of  the  heroes  of  Nick  Carter's  exciting  tales.  They  were 
saying  what  they  thought  they  ought  to  say.  They  were 
following  the  example  which  many  of  us  who  are  older  set 
for  them  in  our  spoken  estimate  of  the  fine  arts,  especially 
of  music  and  painting.  It  takes  training  and  experience 
and  education  to  enjoy  the  best  things  in  these  arts,  and 
many  of  us  have  not  brought  ourselves  to  the  point  of 
really  enjoying  what  is  best.  We  yawn  or  sleep  through  a 
concert,  or  we  stand  bored  before  a  great  painting  praising 
the  artistic  product  with  our  lips  but  getting  little  enjoy- 
ment out  of  it  in  our  souls,  because  we  do  not  yet  know 
enough  to  enjoy  it.  And  that  is  the  way  many  boys  feel 
about  the  literature  they  are  forced  to  read  and  to  criti- 
cise in  the  high  school. 

There  is  little  doubt  in  my  mind  that  Mr.  William  Shak- 
spere  was  a  great  writer  of  English  poetry  and  of  the  Eng- 
lish drama;  he  was,  perhaps,  the  greatest  writer  that  we 
have  ever  known,  but  he  is  not  the  most  easily  understood, 
nor  is  he  ever  likely  to  give  the  greatest  enjoyment 
to  young  and  immature  minds.  Even  in  college  it  is 
not  common  to  find  a  young  fellow  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
who  picks  up  a  volume  of  Shakspere  to  read  for  pleasure 
to  fill  in  an  hour  of  leisure.  I  confess  I  was  not  a  little 
startled  a  few  months  ago  when  an  eighteen-year-old. 


102  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

convalescent  in  our  hospital  asked  me  to  bring  him  a 
book  to  read  while  he  was  getting  well. 

"What  would  you  like?"  I  asked,  expecting  of  course 
that  he  would  say  Harold  Bell  Wright  or  O.  Hemy,  or 
suggest  a  stray  copy  of  the  Cosmopolitan  or  the  Red  Book. 

"I  think  I  should  like  to  read  Henry  V,"  was  his  reply. 
The  only  explanation  is  that  he  must  have  had  a  rare  mind 
or  an  unusually  inspiring  teacher. 

I  do  not  wish  to  suggest  to  high  school  boys  that  they 
are  justified  in  spending  their  time  on  trashy  reading. 
The  better  things  they  read  and  understand  and  en- 
joy, the  better  for  them.  I  am  convinced  that  they  are 
asked  to  read  many  books  good  in  themselves,  but  far  be- 
yond their  understanding  and  their  appreciation.  It  is 
the  reading  habit  which  they  should  cultivate,  and  no 
one  is  likely  to  get  that  habit  unless  reading  is  a  pleasure 
for  him,  unless  books  tempt  him  when  he  sees  them  lying 
about,  and  lure  him  away  from  his  work  or  from  other 
appealing  pleasures.  I  know  few  boys  who  would  decline 
an  invitation  to  a  moving  picture  show  in  order  to  finish 
an  interesting  book. 

There  is  a  good  deal  said  against  the  reading  of  trashy 
books  by  boys,  and  I  think  much  that  has  been  said  is  not 
without  a  foundation  of  truth;  the  practice  is  too  general. 
I  think  I  read  up  to  the  age  of  fifteen  as  much  trashy 
stuff  as  any  normal  boy  of  my  age.  I  read  Mary  J.  Holmes 
and  E.  P.  Roe  and  all  their  clan,  from  Edna  Rivers  to 
Barriers  Burned  Away.    I  went  through  the  goodie-goodie 


BOOKS  AND  READING  103 

volumes  in  our  Sunday  school  library  at  the  rate  of  two  or 
three  a  week.  I  waited  with  the  utmost  impatience  for  the 
weekly  copy  of  the  Saturday  Night  contributed  to  the 
family  stock  of  reading  matter  by  our  hired  man,  and  con- 
taining the  most  exciting  tales  of  murder,  mystery  and 
adventure.  I  remember  still  the  lurid  title  of  one  of  these 
tales — Bentley  Burroughs,  or  The  Skeleton  Hand. 

I  had  something  on  hand  to  read  all  the  time,  and, 
fortunately  I  developed  the  habit  of  reading.  In  the 
course  of  events  the  stock  of  sensational  and  sentimental 
and  adventurous  stuff  gave  out,  but  my  appetite  still 
had  to  be  satisfied.  I  went  quite  naturally  to  Dmnas 
and  Scott  and  Cooper  and  Bulwer-Lytton;  to  Dickens 
and  Eliot  and  Thackeray.  I  even  read  some  poetry  at 
my  father's  suggestion,  and  I  got  a  good  deal  of  insight 
into  historical  works.  Before  I  was  grown,  I  had  read 
pretty  widely,  far  more  widely,  in  fact,  than  I  should 
ever  under  any  other  circumstances  have  had  the  time  to 
do.  I  am  thankful  every  day  that  thus  early  in  my  life 
I  became  acquainted  with  so  wide  a  range  of  literature, 
even  if  some  of  the  books  I  read  are  not  now  contained  in 
the  admirable  list  suggested  by  President  Eliot.  I  can  not 
now  see  how  I  was  hurt  in  any  way.  I  got  enough,  after 
a  while,  of  the  poorer  stuff  and  ultimately  developed  an 
appetite  for  something  solider  and  better. 

I  do  not  believe  that  my  experience  is  unique.  I  have 
asked  my  friends,  many  of  them,  whose  reputation  for 
clear  thinking  and  balanced  judgment  in  literary  matters 


104  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

is  better  than  my  own,  and  not  one  of  them  has  any  seri- 
ous regrets  concerning  his  early  reading,  which  was  in 
many  cases  quite  as  light  as  mine.  The  reading  of  the 
poorer  forms  of  literature  often  makes  the  good  better  in 
contrast.  The  main  thing  is  that  one  should  get  the  habit 
of  reading.  If  that  is  developed  early,  the  problem  of 
cultivating  a  liking  for  what  is  good  and  of  eventually  de- 
veloping a  real  interest  in  what  is  best,  is  not  so  difficult. 

The  high  school  boy  is  at  the  age  when  adventure 
and  mystery  are  most  appealing  to  him.  He  will  learn 
to  read  this  sort  of  literature  most  readily.  He  might 
as  well  be  fed  on  Dumas  and  Jules  Verne  and  Conan 
Doyle  and  Stevenson  as  upon  Nick  Carter;  he  might 
as  well  have  good  English  and  stimulating  healthy  ad- 
venture as  the  opposite. 

The  reading  habit  is  cultivated  like  any  other  habit, 
and  the  taste  for  books  developed  like  any  other  taste, 
by  practice,  and  persistence.  We  can  learn  anything 
if  we  want  to  do  so  and  if  we  keep  at  it.  The  reading 
habit  is  a  good  one  because  it  furnishes  us  a  ready  method 
of  getting  information,  of  learning  about  what  has  been 
done  and  what  is  doing  in  the  world.  We  would  stagnate 
if  we  did  not  read;  we  could  make  little  progress  in  any 
sort  of  work  without  reading.  The  business  or  profes- 
sional man  who  does  not  read  soon  gets  to  be  a  back 
number  in  his  work. 

There  is  nothing  that  can  give  one  more  pleasure  than 
the  habit  of  reading.     If  one  has  learned  to  read  and 


BOOKS  AND  READING  105 

to  enjoy  books  he  need  never  have  a  dull  or  a  lonesome 
moment.  No  matter  where  he  may  be,  if  he  has  an  inter- 
esting book  at  hand,  he  can  soon  in  imagination  sur- 
round himself  with  interesting  scenes  and  pleasing  friends, 
and  his  cares  and  his  boredom  will  vanish.  If  a  boy 
likes  to  read,  an  evening  at  home  alone,  a  long  wait  in 
an  otherwise  dull  railway  station,  lack  of  companion- 
ship for  a  time,  isolation  of  any  sort,  will  not  only  have 
no  horrors  for  him,  but  may  even  be  for  a  time  a  source 
of  actual  enjoyment.  I  always  like  a  rainy  day  or  a 
stormy  night  in  winter,  or  a  quiet  undisturbed  Sunday 
afternoon,  because  it  furnishes  a  chance  to  stay  in-doors 
and  to  cultivate  the  companionship  of  an  entertaining 
book. 

When  I  hear  boys,  or  men,  complaining  of  the  fact 
that  Sunday  is  such  a  long,  dull  day,  that  there  is  nowhere 
to  go  and  nothing  to  do,  when  I  see  them  yawning  with 
the  weariness  of  leisure  and  strolling  aimlessly  down 
the  street  tired  of  existence,  I  know  for  one  thing  that 
they  find  little  comfort  in  religion,  and  for  another, 
that  they  have  not  cultivated  the  reading  habit,  and 
so  find  little  pleasure  in  books.  I  am  always  sorry  to 
think  what  pleasure  they  have  missed,  and  I  wish  that  I 
might  lead  them  into  the  friendships  and  the  companion- 
ships which  are  so  easily  formed  through  reading.  Think 
what  it  must  mean  not  to  have  known  and  enjoyed  Wil- 
kins  Micawber,  and  King  Lear,  and  Tom  TuUiver,  and 
D'Artagnan  and  Sidney  Carton  and  Colonel  Newcome 


106  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

and  Tom  Jones,  and  Becky  Sharpe,  and  all  the  myriad 
of  interesting  characters  with  which  literature  is  filled. 
Life  must  be  pretty  dull  to  those  whose  acquaintance 
is  limited  to  real  people  only. 

One  of  the  most  placid  and  contented  persons  I  have 
ever  known  was  an  old  lady  who  was  totally  blind  and 
who  was  forced  for  several  years  to  lie  in  bed  a  good 
deal  of  the  time  alone.  I  used  to  drop  in  upon  her  fre- 
quently and  usually  quite  unexpectedly.  The  great 
surprise  to  me  was  that  I  never  found  her  depressed  or 
with  time  hanging  heavy  on  her  hands.  She  was  unifor- 
mally  cheerful  and  happy  and  with  a  mind  that  seemed 
constantly  occupied  with  something  that  was  interest- 
ing and  pleasing. 

"What  do  you  do  to  occupy  your  time  and  your  thoughts 
when  you  are  so  much  alone,"  I  asked  her  once,  "espe- 
cially when  you  can  not  see?" 

"I  visit  with  my  old  friends,"  she  said. 

Then  she  went  on  to  tell  me  that  all  through  early 
and  middle  life,  although  she  had  had  little  opportunity 
for  education  in  the  schools,  she  had  been  a  constant 
reader.  I  was  amazed  to  discover  how  much  she  had 
read  and  how  well  she  remembered  it.  Now  that  she 
was  old  and  blind  she  went  over  all  these  literary  ex- 
periences in  her  mind  daily,  and  she  got  from  the  recol- 
lection infinite  pleasure  and  recreation.  Just  the  day 
I  had  been  talking  to  her,  she  told  me,  she  had  been 
recalling  the    incidents   in   Scott's   Heart  of  Midlothian 


BOOKS  AND  READING  107 

the  scenes  of  which  were  made  more  vivid  to  her  from 
the  fact  that  she  had  been  born  in  northern  England, 
had  visited  Edinburgh  as  a  girl,  and  knew  ver>^  well, 
because  her  own  youthful  feet  had  trodden  it,  the  road 
which  Jeanie  Deans  had  taken  from  Edinburgh  to  London 
when  she  went  to  plead  for  her  sister's  life.  Her  early 
reading  was  the  source  of  hourly  pleasure  to  her,  and 
made  quite  bearable  an  existence  which  might  other- 
wise have  been  wretched  even  to  contemplate. 

No  one  has  so  much  time  at  his  disposal  to  learn  to 
read  as  the  young  person  before  he  enters  high  school 
and  during  his  high  school  course.  More  than  this, 
youth  is  the  habit-forming  time,  as  I  have  said,  more 
than  once.  If  one  does  not  learn  the  habit  of  reading 
then,  he  is  not  likely  ever  to  acquire  it.  It  would  seem 
easy  to  prove  that  with  all  the  opportunities  furnished 
the  boy  for  reading  while  he  is  in  the  elementary  school, 
and  after  he  enters  high  school,  with  the  great  variety 
of  reading  he  is  required  to  do,  and  with  the  wide  range 
of  books  from  which  he  may  choose,  he  would  learn  to 
like  something,  he  would  cultivate  his  interest,  and 
would  continue  his  acquaintance  with  books  during 
vacation  and  after  he  had  graduated  from  high  school. 
The  number  of  boys,  however,  who  regularly  and  of 
their  own  choice  read  books  while  they  are  in  the  high 
school  and  after  they  get  out  is  small,  and  the  class  of 
books  in  which  they  find  interest  is  often  very  poor.  The 
training  in  English  in  our  schools  does  not  develop  the 


108  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

reading  habit  generally  nor  does  it  awaken  generally  an 
interest  in  good  not  to  say  the  best,  literature.  I  have 
suggested  previously  that  I  believe  the  explanation  of 
this  condition  arises  from  the  fact  that  we  force  the  taste 
of  young  people  and  feed  them  at  first  on  things  they  can 
not  assimilate.  We  give  them  literary  indigestion,  and 
they  revolt  from  reading. 

There  is  scarcely  a  day  of  his  life  until  he  finishes  high 
school  that  a  boy  might  not  devote  at  least  a  short  time 
to  reading  from  which  he  could  derive  both  pleasure  and 
profit.  If  you  want  to  learn  to  read,  select  first  the  things 
that  are  most  interesting  to  you — history,  science,  poetry, 
fiction,  the  news  of  the  day,  or  whatever  it  may  be.  Read 
the  best  things  that  you  can  understand  and  enjoy.  You 
will  find  that  scientific  facts  as  presented  by  Darwin 
and  Huxley  and  John  Burroughs  are  not  only  quite  as 
dependable  as  those  which  commonplace  writers  give 
you,  but  they  are  so  simply  and  so  interestingly  pre- 
sented that  they  read  like  a  story  book;  they  will  develop 
your  scientific  interest  far  more  quickly  than  if  you  give 
your  time  to  some  other  author  who  knows  less  and  writes 
worse.  If  you  enjoy  history,  then  read  Macaulay  or 
John  Fiske,  or  Motley  or  any  one  of  a  dozen  men  who 
will  give  you  all  the  facts  that  a  less  brilliant  author 
might  present,  and  who  will  do  it  in  a  style  that  is  at  once 
delightful  and  inspiring.  If  you  are  drawn  to  the  fiction 
of  heroism  and  adventure  you  will  not  know  what  de- 
light there  is  in  romance  at  its  best  until  you  have  tasted 


BOOKS  AND  READING  109 

the  incomparable  Duinas  who  will  lead  you  through 
one  volume  and  another  with  a  fascination  that  is  impos- 
sible to  resist.  The  boy  who  once  gets  into  the  Three 
Musketeers  and  who  lays  it  down  before  it  is  finished, 
has  a  self-control  which  is  beyond  my  understanding. 

If  you  find  it  not  easy  to  cultivate  the  reading  habit 
from  lack  of  interest  or  for  apparent  lack  of  time,  you  will 
be  tempted  to  it  rather  subtly  by  having  a  book  near 
by,  so  that  when  you  drop  into  an  easy  chair,  or  stretch 
yourself  on  a  couch,  for  a  little  rest  or  to  wait  until  din- 
ner is  ready,  it  will  catch  your  eye  or  fall  easily  into 
your  hand.  If  the  book  is  your  own,  and  especially  if 
you  have  been  led  through  curiosity  or  passing  fancy 
to  pay  for  it  with  your  own  money,  the  temptation 
will  be  all  the  stronger  for  you  to  see  what  is  in  it;  and, 
if  you  have  any  persistence,  having  once  begun  it,  you 
will  be  sure  to  stay  with  it  until  you  have  finished  it. 
The  reading  of  one  book  almost  invariably  leads  to  the 
reading  of  another,  and  so  gradually  the  habit  fastens 
itself  upon  you. 

The  difficulty  which  most  men  have  in  college  or  later 
in  life  in  accomplishing  as  much  reading  as  is  set  for 
them  to  do,  is  due  to  their  not  having  cultivated  the 
habit  of  reading  rapidly.  The  ability  to  read  rapidly 
comes  from  experience;  if  you  have  read  little  you  are 
quite  likely  to  read  slowly.  Reading  is  very  largely 
a  mechanical  process  acquired  through  daily  practice 
like  playing   the   piano   or  operating   a   typewriter.     If 


no  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

it  takes  you  all  the  evening  to  get  through  a  few  pages, 
it  is  quite  certain  that  you  have  not  cultivated  very 
fully  the  reading  habit.  Here,  again,  the  value  of 
beginning  while  young  and  while  you  have  leisure  to 
cultivate  the  habit  of  reading  rapidly  and  reading  widely 
is  apparent. 

The  wider  the  range  of  your  reading,  the  more  en- 
joyment you  will  get  out  of  it,  and  the  greater  will 
be  the  development  of  your  knowledge,  your  sympa- 
thies, and  your  imagination.  Everyone  should  read 
the  daily  newspapers  in  order  that  he  may  have  an  in- 
telligent knowledge  of  the  world  and  its  progress  at  home 
and  abroad.  No  intelligent  boy  can  now  afford  to  be 
ignorant  of  the  progress  of  events  in  all  lands.  The 
world  is,  after  all,  a  pretty  small  place,  and  it  is  not  very 
hard,  if  one  tries,  to  know  something  about  a  good  deal 
of  it.  If  you  read  the  newspaper  as  you  should,  you 
will  read  it  pretty  thoroughly  from  the  feature  news  on 
the  first  page  through  the  editorials  to  the  market  reports 
on  the  last  page.  The  cartoons,  the  jokes,  and  the  sport- 
ing page  will,  of  course,  interest  you  most,  but  you  can 
easily  cultivate  an  interest  in  other  things. 

You  should  keep  up  with  the  literature  of  the  profession 
or  business  in  which  you  are  engaged  or  in  which  you  ex- 
pect to  engage.  It  is  not  enough,  however,  if  you  are  in- 
terested in  farming  to  be  satisfied  with  reading  an  agri- 
cultural journal  and  the  local  weekly  paper.  I  know  a 
good  many  farmers  who  get  no  further  in  their  reading 


BOOKS  AND  READING  111 

than  the  perusal  once  a  week  of  a  stock  journal.  These  are 
not  very  progressive  men,  however.  The  newspapers  and 
the  technical  journals  are  for  information  largely.  You 
should  read  something  regularly  for  inspiration,  for  kind- 
ling your  imagination,  and  for  developing  your  ideals. 
Read  poetry.  The  better  magazines  are  full  of  pleasant 
and  inspiring  verse,  and  there  is  always,  to  fall  back  upon, 
the  good  old  standbys  which  you  have  studied  and  are 
studying  in  high  school.  You  will  never  be  sorry  if  you 
form  the  habit  early  of  committing  to  memory  such  lines 
or  stanzas  or  whole  poems  as  especially  please  you.  All 
through  your  life  these  lines  will  come  back  to  you  to  be  a 
source  of  pleasure  and  a  stimulation  to  happy  memories. 
Middle  life  and  old  age  seem  to  you  now  very  remote  pos- 
sibilities, but  they  will  be  on  you,  especially  if  you  lead 
a  busy  life,  almost  before  you  know  it.  You  will  always 
be  glad  if  while  your  mind  is  plastic  and  easily  impressed, 
you  let  it  dwell  upon  things  that  are  pleasing  and  beauti- 
ful, and  if  at  will  you  can  recall  passages  from  the  best 
things  that  have  been  written. 

Nearly  everyone  reads  fiction  of  some  sort,  of  course — 
adventure,  romance,  mystery,  character  study,  philos- 
ophy— there  are  many  things  treated  in  the  modern  novel 
or  short  story,  and  every  day,  almost,  there  seems  to  be  a 
new  magazine  springing  up  filled  with  fiction  and  feature 
stories  and  attracting  the  eye  with  its  bizarre  and  parti- 
colored cover.  Most  of  these  are  rather  trashy, — a  good 
deal  of  the  fiction  of  today  is  hardly  worth  the  time 


112  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

it  takes  to  read  it.  The  magazines  which  our  fathers  read 
and  which  have  stood  the  test  for  fifty  years  or  more,  are 
still  the  best,  and  one  of  these,  at  least,  you  ought  to  read 
regularly.  A  magazine  usually  announces  both  the  qual- 
ity and  the  character  of  its  contents  by  the  refinement  and 
taste  of  the  design  on  its  cover.  The  quiet  ones  are  the 
most  conservative  and  the  most  worth  while. 

You  will  have  to  read  some  books  of  the  present  day; 
you  would  be  thought  ignorant  and  behind  the  tunes  other- 
wise. People  will  continue  to  talk  about  last  month's  "best 
sellers,"  and  though  very  often  there  is  little  reason  why 
these  books  should  sell  so  well,  you  will  miss  something 
if  you  are  unacquainted  with  them.  Your  greatest  pleas- 
ure in  reading,  however,  will  be  in  the  books  that  have 
stood  the  test  of  time — in  Scott,  and  Cooper  and  Dickens, 
and  Eliot  and  Thackeray  and  Hawthorne  and  Steven- 
son, of  whose  infinite  variety  you  can  not  tire.  If  you 
have  not  already  made  their  acquaintance,  you  should  be- 
gin at  once.  If  you  have  not  before  this  read  the  most 
that  they  have  written,  you  have  to  look  forward  to  one 
of  the  great  pleasures  of  your  life. 

Since  I  began  the  writing  of  this  paper  I  have  been  read- 
ing aloud  Dickens'  David  Copperfield.  I  read  it  first  when 
I  was  ten  with  the  greatest  pleasure  and  interest;  I  have 
read  it  since  a  half  dozen  times,  I  have  no  doubt,  and  yet 
I  think  the  fact  of  any  former  readings  adds  rather  than 
detracts  from  the  pleasure  which  I  get  from  it  today.  As 
long  as  I  live  it  will  give  me  joy  to  go  through  its  chapters. 


BOOKS  AND  READING  113 

Sometimes  I  hear  boys  say  "I  don't  like  Stevenson,"  or 
"I  don't  like  Dickens."  In  such  cases,  however,  I  usually 
find  that  they  have  read  very  little  of  these  authors — 
one  book  perhaps — and  have  based  their  judgment  upon 
that  one  volume.  Don't  be  discouraged  if  you  are  not 
pleased  the  first  time  you  dip  into  an  author;  try  some- 
thing else.  No  two  books  are  more  unlike  than  The 
Tale  of  Two  Cities  and  Great  Expectations  and  any 
one  who  has  read  only  Dr.  JeJcyll  and  Mr.  Hyde 
might  not  suspect  that  Stevenson  wrote  a  book  like 
Treasure  Island  or  The  Wrong  Box.  An  author, 
like  any  other  normal  human  being,  has  different  in- 
terests and  different  moods,  and  we  can  not  honestly 
judge  him  until  we  have  seen  him  under  different  condi- 
tions. 

If  from  your  high  school  course  you  get  nothing  else 
than  the  ability  to  read  intelligently,  an  appreciation  of 
books,  and  a  liking  for  their  companionship,  the  years  in 
school  will  not  have  been  spent  in  vain.  If  you  come  away 
from  your  high  school  training  with  a  dislike  for  study, 
and  with  little  or  no  interest  in  books,  and  no  joy  in  the 
anticipation  of  reading  you  have  missed  much  of  what 
you  should  have  gained. 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES 

The  social  activities  of  the  young  almost  always  seem 
excessive  to  the  middle-aged.  There  are  few  things  we 
forget  so  easily  as  the  escapades  of  youth.  A  middle-aged 
father  was  advising  his  young  son  against  the  evils  of 
dancing. 

"But  you  danced,  father,  when  you  were  a  boy,"  the 
son  protested. 

"True,"  the  father  replied,  "but  I  have  seen  the  folly 
of  it." 

"Well,"  the  boy  replied,  "I  want  to  see  the  folly  of  it, 
too." 

It  is  a  very  normal  desire  for  a  young  boy  to  want  to 
have  regular  and  pleasant  association  with  other  young 
people  both  girls  and  boys,  and  in  what  I  say  in  this  paper 
I  do  not  overlook  this  fact.  It  is  a  desire  the  gratification 
of  which  may  very  easily  be  carried  to  excess;  it  is  a  desire 
which  parents,  especially  fathers,  are  wont  to  forget  that 
they  ever  themselves  felt.  I  have  never  had  a  son,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  to  whom  I  could  tell  how  hard  I  worked  when 
a  boy,  how  little  money  I  spent,  how  seldom  I  stayed  out 
at  night  or  went  to  social  parties,  but  I  have  listened  to 
other  fathers  discoursing  thus  virtuously  to  their  sons,  so 
I  know  that  they  had  forgotten  their  youth  as  I  might 
have  done  had  I  but  had  a  chance.    Social  customs  change. 

114 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  115 

We  should  not  expect  our  children  to  enjoy  themselves 
quite  as  we  did  at  their  age.  The  pleasures  in  which  I 
indulged  as  a  boy  are  very  different  from  those  in  which 
my  young  nephews  take  delight,  though  I  can  not  see 
that  mine  were  either  saner  or  more  restrained  than  theirs, 
and  I  try  to  remember  this  fact  when  I  am  tempted  to 
criticise  the  social  life  of  the  young  people  of  today.  I 
should  hardly  be  excusable,  however,  if  I  did  not  try  to 
give  them  the  benefit  of  my  experience. 

Men,  young  and  old,  are  social  animals.  All  of  us  like 
to  join  things.  It  is  as  difficult  for  me  to  refuse  an  invita- 
tion to  become  a  member  of  a  club  or  a  fraternity  or  an 
organization  as  it  is  to  resist  the  seductive  talk  of  a  book 
agent  when  he  spreads  his  attractive  wares  before  my  eyes. 
I  feel  like  a  hero  if  I  can  summon  the  courage  to  turn  him 
down.  We  joined  church  or  the  Democratic  party,  I 
have  no  doubt,  not  so  much  from  any  strong  religious  or 
political  convictions  as  from  the  fact  that  we  were  asked; 
we  found  it  diSicult  to  resist  a  chance  to  join,  and  we 
yielded.  I  am  not  arguing,  however,  that  there  is  always 
profit  in  joining.  Boys  feel  very  much  about  joining  things 
as  men  do.  When  they  go  into  a  high  school  fraternity, 
they  are  but  imitating  their  fathers  or  their  older  brothers 
in  college  each  of  whom,  no  doubt,  has  his  club  or  his  fra- 
ternity. Yet,  on  the  whole,  I  am  convinced  that  mem- 
bership in  a  high  school  fraternity  is  not  a  good  thing. 

Such  an  organization  might  be  beneficial  if  it  were  based 
upon  more  strictly  democratic  principles  than  it  often  is. 


116  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

Boys  are  chosen  usually  for  membership  not  so  much  be-- 
cause  of  similarity  of  tastes  and  similarity  of  character  as 
from  similarity  of  their  fathers '  income  and  social  or  busi- 
ness position.  Even  in  the  country  town  in  which  I  live, 
I  could  without  much  chance  of  error  pick  out  the  boys 
who,  when  they  leave  the  graded  schools,  will  be  asked  to 
join  one  or  another  of  the  high  school  fraternities  existing 
in  the  local  high  school,  and  I  could  do  it  without 
knowing  the  boys  personally  at  all,  but  simply  from  my 
knowledge  of  their  parents  and  from  my  acquaintance 
with  their  financial  rating.  A  boy  in  moderate  or  meager 
circumstances  very  seldom  gets  into  such  an  organization, 
unless  perchance  he  be  an  athlete,  who  is  likely  to  be  taken 
because  he  is  a  hero.  The  poor  boy  can  not  afford  to  be- 
long; the  boy  without  social  prestige  would  queer  the 
others. 

The  high  school  fraternity,  excepting  in  private  acade- 
mies and  boarding  schools,  exists  not  so  much  to  bring  boys 
together  and  to  strengthen  the  friendly  relations  existing 
between  them  as  to  develop  a  rather  excessive  social  life 
in  which  girls  are  also  to  a  large  degree  involved.  In  a 
private  or  boarding  school  the  conditions  of  living  are 
different  and  the  necessity  for  banding  together  more 
justifiable.  Such  boys  are  away  from  home,  and  they 
miss  their  customary  social  life,  and  whatever  helps  to 
make  for  them  some  of  the  associations  and  comforts  of 
home  is  good.  A  boj''s'  fraternity  in  a  private  academy, 
is,  in  a  large  degree,  like  a  college  fraternity  and  usu- 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  117 

ally  is  free  from  the  objectionable  features  which  charac- 
terize such  an  organization  in  a  city  high  school.  It  is 
largely  to  make  boys  acquainted  with  each  other,  and 
not  so  much  to  bring  the  members  into  closer  and  more 
frequent  association  with  girls.  It  makes  for  healthy 
friendship. 

The  high  school  fraternity  is  too  frequently  little  more 
than  a  dancing  club.  Its  meetings  are  taken  up  largely 
with  discussions  of  the  girl  friends  of  the  members,  in 
making  arrangements  for  the  next  dance,  or  in  trying 
to  determine  how  best  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  last 
one.  If  it  gave  boys  definite  work  to  do,  if  it  developed  in 
them  qualities  of  leadership,  or  helped  them  the  better  to 
assume  responsibility  while  giving  them  social  training,  I 
should  not  so  much  object,  but  as  I  have  seen  the  members 
of  such  an  organization  after  they  are  out  of  high  school 
and  in  college,  I  can  not  see  that  it  often  does  any  of  these 
things  for  them. 

My  observation  of  the  high  school  fraternity  man  after 
he  has  entered  college  is  that  he  is  usually  a  very  in- 
different student  with  little  scholastic  ambition.  His 
ambitions  are  mainly  social.  He  makes  a  poor  fra- 
ternity man  in  college,  beause  he  has  not  realized  in  his 
high  school  fraternity  any  of  the  fundamental  principles 
of  adult  fraternity  life.  Fraternity  officers  all  over  the 
country  are  agreed  upon  this  point,  and  have  passed  a  res- 
olution that  after  1920  no  high  school  fraternity  man  will 
be  eligible  for  membership  in  a  college  Greek  letter  fra- 


118  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

ternity.  The  reason  for  this  action  is  that  the  high  school 
fraternity  man  is  selfish,  undemocratic,  hard  to  control, 
and  unwilling  to  assume  responsibility. 

The  expense  of  membership  in  such  an  organization, 
even  for  people  in  good  circumstances,  is  not  to  be 
overlooked.  The  high  school  fraternity  member  con- 
siders himself  quite  grown  up,  and  is  not  content  in 
his  social  activities  to  be  considered  other  than  a  man 
with  all  the  accessories  that  accompany  adult,  manly, 
social  life.  Taxis  and  candy  and  flowers  and  evening 
clothes  all  form  a  part  of  his  social  functions;  dinner 
dances  and  all  night  sessions  are  not  unusual.  The 
high  school  boy  attempts  to  imitate  all  the  social  ex- 
cesses and  extravagances  of  his  older  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances. Sometimes  there  are  even  rumors  of  drink- 
ing and  gambling  and  immorality,  exaggerated  perhaps, 
but  having,  no  doubt,  some  small  foundation  in  fact. 

Only  last  year  I  called  to  my  office  two  freshmen  in  col- 
lege who  were  developing  a  reputation  for  idleness  and  in- 
temperance. They  came  from  conservative,  religious,  and 
well-to-do  families,  so  that  I  could  scarcely  believe  the  tales 
concerning  them  which  were  floating  about  the  campus. 
They  admitted,  however,  that  they  were  drinking,  but  of 
this  fact  their  parents  had  no  suspicion,  they  said. 

"When  did  you  begin?"  I  asked. 

"When  we  were  sophomores  in  high  school,"  was  the 
reply.  "The  fellows  in  our  fraternity  all  thought  it  was 
smart  to  drink." 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  119 

It  is  the  secrecy  of  the  fraternity  no  doubt,  that  encour- 
ages such  escapades.  It  is  one  of  the  privileges  of  club  life, 
the  boy  thinks,  to  be  able  unmolested  to  attempt  risque 
things,  and  being  alone  in  his  deUberations  and  free  from 
the  guiding  hand  or  the  warning  voice  of  older  men,  he 
slips  easily  into  temptation. 

The  high  school  fraternity  is  in  little  or  no  sense  a 
real  brotherhood.  Its  purpose  is  not  to  bring  boys  to- 
gether for  mutual  self-help.  It  seldom  inculcates  high 
moral  ideals  or  develops  interest  in  good  scholarship 
even  if  it  does  not  actually  discourage  these  things.  The 
members  are  not  selected  because  they  show  fitness 
for  doing  well  the  work  of  high  school,  but  rather  because 
they  dress  well,  dance  well,  are  popular  with  the  girls, 
and  are  able  to  spend  money  freely  upon  social  pleasure. 
The  high  school  fraternity  seldom  if  ever  has  for  its  pur- 
pose the  improving  of  general  social  conditions  in  the 
school  or  the  desire  to  be  an  aid  to  the  school  authorities  in 
the  intelligent  and  satisfactory  control  of  school  affairs. 
On  the  contrary  it  often  pulls  down  scholastic  standards, 
it  is  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help  in  school  man- 
agement, and  it  contributes  to  the  pleasure  of  only  a 
very  limited  and  select  number  of  students.  Healthy 
social  activity  in  the  high  school  should  be  general,  demo- 
cratic, an  activity  into  which  every  respectable  and 
well-mannered  member  of  the  school  may  enter,  and  not 
limited  to  a  few  people  who  are  possessed  of  money. 

I  have  seldom  known  a  high  school  fraternity  which 


120  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

did  not  stir  up  trouble.  The  exclusiveness  of  it  arouses 
envy  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are  not  invited  to  join. 
It  develops  cliques  and  factions,  and  breaks  down  rather 
than  strengthens  high  school  spirit.  It  often  makes  a 
boy  arrogant  and  something  of  a  cad.  For  all  these 
reasons  I  believe  the  high  school  fraternity  is  in  a  ma- 
jority of  cases  not  the  healthiest  and  best  medium  for 
the  social  activities  of  the  high  school  boy.  It  develops 
social  selfishness,  its  members  are  likely  to  overestimate 
their  own  social  importance,  it  encourages  extravagance 
in  money  matters  and  a  contempt  for  others  who  are 
outside  of  this  social  aristocracy.  If  I  had  a  boy  I  should 
be  sorry  if  he  became  a  member  of  such  an  organization. 
A  few  evenings  ago  I  attended  a  dance  to  which  one 
of  these  high  school  fraternity  boys  had  been  invited. 
He  came  in  his  own  car  and  brought  with  him  his  "steady 
girl."  He  was  dressed  with  extreme  care  in  a  decidedly 
extreme  style.  She  was  fifteen  perhaps,  and  he  a  year 
older.  She  showed  all  the  toilet  artifices,  all  the  shades  of 
coloration,  of  the  beauty  parlor.  They  danced  together 
continuously  throughout  the  evening,  they  exhibited  the 
most  extreme  contortions  and  gyrations  of  the  "shimmy" 
they  omitted  the  usual  courtesy  of  speaking  to  the  chaper- 
ones,  and  held  themselves  entirely  aloof  throughout 
the  evening  from  contact  with  their  conservative  com- 
panions. They  admitted  by  their  actions  that  they 
were  the  social  elect,  the  aristocracy  who  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  the  vulgar  level  of  the  crowd. 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  121 

I  should  not,  perhaps,  blame  the  boy's  lack  of  good 
manners  and  good  taste  upon  his  fraternity  any  more 
than  I  should  hold  it  responsible  for  his  failure  to  pass 
his  high  school  course  in  English,  but  the  fraternity, 
when  it  took  him  in,  knew  what  he  was,  that  he  had 
neither  moral  nor  intellectual  ideals,  that  he  had  no 
conception  of  good  manners,  though  his  father,  it  is  true, 
is  a  prominent  professional  man.  It  was  this  last  fact 
that  weighed  most  heavily  in  the  balance  when  the  boy 
was  being  considered  for  membership.  My  quarrel 
with  the  fraternity  lies  in  the  fact  that  having  taken 
him  in  it  has  done  nothing  to  improve  him,  but  on  the 
contrary  has  rather  encouraged  him  in  his  extreme  habits. 
It  is  not  giving  him  the  sort  of  social  training  that  a  boy 
should  get  in  high  school. 

We  can  never  quite  get  away  from  the  fact  in  the 
discussion  of  a  high  school  boy's  social  activities  that 
most  high  schools  are  coeducational.  In  considering 
boys,  we  can  not  ignore  the  fact  that  girls,  too,  come  in 
for  a  large  share  of  consideration.  It  is  a  good  thing  for 
a  young  boy  to  have  a  healthy  conventional  association 
with  girls.  It  helps  him  morally  and  socially.  I  think 
that  a  boy  can  have  no  stronger  moral  influence  than 
the  companionship  of  a  high-principled,  well-balanced 
girl.  The  boy,  however,  who  limits  his  associations  to 
girls,  or  especially  to  one  girl,  or  who  gives  a  considerable 
part  of  his  leisure  time  to  such  an  association  is  weakened 
by  it.     He  becomes  soft  and  mushy;  he  moons  around 


122  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

sentimentally  taking  little  pleasure,  usually,  in  the  vig- 
orous physical  sports  which  go  far  to  make  a  man.  He 
develops  feminine  rather  than  masculine  traits.  Highly 
as  I  regard  the  benefits  which  come  to  a  young  fellow 
from  his  regular  relationships  with  the  right  sort  of  girls, 
I  have  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  the  strong,  aggressive, 
manly  qualities  which  we  all  want  to  see  in  a  developing 
boy  come  from  his  regular  contact  and  association  with 
those  of  his  own  sex.  Constant  and  uninterrupted  as- 
sociation with  girls  induces  fastidiousness  and  over- 
refinement  in  a  boy.  It  takes  the  fight  out  of  him,  it 
tends  toward  laziness  and  lassitude.  Such  a  boy  drops 
easily  into  a  rocking  chair  or  a  porch  swing.  He 
learns  usually  to  play  some  stringed  instrument  like  the 
ukelele  or  the  mandolin,  and  he  talks  sentimental  non- 
sense. 

The  young  boy  with   the  steady  girl  is  the  worst  of 
all.    Whenever  a  boy  begins  to  sing  with  feeling : 

Only  one  girl  in  this  world  for  me, 
Only  oiie  girl  has  my  sympathy, 

his  high  school  work  is  likely  to  go  glimmering.  It  is 
not  always  helpful  to  have  a  half  dozen  to  divide  his 
attention  during  his  leisure  hours;  it  is  positively  hope- 
less if  he  can  see  only  one  on  the  horizon.  The  high 
school  boy  who  devotes  his  social  attentions  exclusively 
to  one  girl  gets  little  social  training  or  experience.  He 
does  not  learn  to  adapt  himself  to  different  tempera- 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  123 

ments,  he  is  likely  to  become  lax  in  his  manners  and  to 
ignore  social  conventions.  He  comes  to  know  the  girl 
so  well  that  he  often  does  not  take  the  trouble  to  be 
scrupulously  polite  to  her.  There  is  likely  to  develop 
a  dangerous  familiarity  which  breaks  down  the  respect 
and  the  courtesy  which  every  boy  ought  to  show  to  the 
girls  of  his  acquaintance  and  to  women  generally.  "  Spoon- 
ing "  is  ruinous  to  a  boy,  morally  and  socially. 

Such  a  boy  I  see  every  day.  He  is  in  reality  girl  crazy. 
Every  morning  he  walks  clown  the  street  to  meet  her 
and  to  carry  her  books  to  school.  Twice  a  day  they 
walk  back  and  forth  together,  each  quite  oblivious  of 
any  presence  but  the  other.  They  hang  on  each  other. 
Every  evening,  if  the  weather  permits,  they  go  strolling 
until  long  past  the  proper  hour  for  children  to  be  in  bed. 
Late  at  night  I  often  recognize  his  sentimental  whistle 
as  he  goes  back  home  after  being  with  her  during  the 
evening.  He  is  failing  in  his  studies;  he  could  be  expected 
to  do  nothing  else,  for  he  sees  nothing,  thinks  of  nothing, 
dreams  of  no  one  but  the  girl;  and  he  treats  her  and 
speaks  of  her  with  a  suggestion  of  ownership  that  is 
disgusting.  In  this  relation  as  in  many  others,  there 
is  safety  in  numbers,  for  if  there  were  a  half  dozen  he 
would  waste  far  less  time  and  energy  than  in  the  present 
instance,  and  he  would  learn  more  that  is  useful  and  help- 
ful in  social  matters. 

There  is  the  boy  in  high  school  also  who  goes  to 
the  opposite  extreme — who   "can't  see  a  girl  at.  all." 


124  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

He  is  speechless  when  in  the  presence  of  the  girls,  he 
blushes  crimson  if  one  addresses  a  remark  to  him,  he 
has  no  interest  in  social  activities,  and  no  finesse  in 
social  conventionalities.  When  he  comes  into  a  room 
he  is  all  hands  and  legs;  the  furniture  seems  to  become 
animate  and  to  take  delight  in  getting  into  his  way 
so  that  he  may  the  more  easily  stumble  over  it.  It 
agonizes  him  to  enter  a  room  where  there  are  girls,  it 
is  utterly  unpossible  for  him  unassisted  to  get  out  of 
one.    He  can  never  think  of  anything  to  say. 

Such  a  boy  would  be  benefited  iimneasurably  if 
he  forced  himself  a  little  more  into  social  activities,  if 
he  studied  to  some  extent  how  to  carry  on  a  conversa- 
tion, how  to  please  people,  how  to  come  and  go  without 
awkwardness  and  embarrassment.  Nothing  causes  self- 
consciousness  more  than  a  lack  of  acquaintance  with 
social  usage  and  social  forms,  and  nothing  acquaints 
one  with  these  details  more  quickly  than  a  little  practice 
and  experience.  No  boy  is  so  awkward  or  so  crude  or 
so  shy  that  he  can  not  learn  with  a  little  training  to  over- 
come these  traits  and  to  enjoy  his  social  relations  with 
other  young  people.  As  soon  as  he  overcomes  his  first 
embarrassment  he  will  be  surprised  at  his  former  point 
of  view. 

There  is  a  real  value  to  the  growing  boy  in  social  ac- 
tivities, in  learning  to  meet  men  as  well  as  women,  and 
older  men  and  women  as  well  as  those  who  are  of  their 
own  age;  boys  can  learn  how,  and  it  should  be  considered 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  125 

a  necessary  part  of  their  education  that  they  do  so. 
I  was  setthng  down  after  dinner,  not  long  ago,  to  a  quiet 
evening  of  reading  before  the  grate  fire  when  the  telephone 
rang.    I  answered  the  call. 

"It's  Billy  Charters,"  I  explained,  as  I  came  back  with 
a  rather  downcast  air.  "He  has  just  come  to  town,  and  he 
wants  to  come  over  and  call  this  evening.  It's  a  trial,  I 
know,  but  I  couldn't  in  decency  say  less  than  that  we'd  be 
glad  to  see  him." 

We  had  known  Billy's  uncle  a  number  of  years  ago,  and 
had  met  his  mother  once  on  a  visit  to  Boston;  there  was  no 
mistaking  our  duty,  and  we  braced  up  for  a  dull  evening. 
The  prospect  seemed  all  the  more  dull  in  view  of  the  mem- 
ory of  Barker's  call  on  the  previous  Sunday  afternoon. 
Barker  is  a  neighbor's  boy  who  had  arrived  just  after 
dinner — we  have  dinner  at  one  on  Sundays — and  we  wore 
ourselves  to  a  thin  edge  in  an  attempt  to  introduce  top- 
ics of  conversation  that  would  arouse  even  a  remote  in- 
terest and  enthusiasm  on  his  part.  He  could  not  be  made 
to  talk,  so  we  lapsed  into  silence  and  filled  up  the  time 
by  playing  band  pieces  on  the  victrola.  Other  callers  came 
and  went,  but  he  hung  on. 

He  was  eager  to  go,  but  he  did  not  know  how.  Finally 
he  arose  and  expressed  an  intention  of  bringing  his  call  to 
a  close.  Everyone  stood — and  continued  to  stand  twenty 
minutes — watching  Barker  trying  to  get  out.  It  was  only 
by  my  moving  him  gradually  toward  the  front  door  and 
all  but  pushing  him  into  the  street  that  he  ultimately  got 


126  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

away;  and  yet  Barker  was  having  as  unpleasant  a  time 
as  we  were.     He  had  had  no  social  experience. 

I  heard  Billy's  step  on  the  walk  at  a  quarter  of  eight, 
and  I  laid  down  my  book  with  a  regretful  sigh  to  usher  him 
in.  He  proved  to  be  a  healthy,  cheerful  fellow  of  eighteen 
who  settled  down  in  one  of  our  arm-chairs  with  a  com- 
fortable, easy  air  that  relieved  the  situation  at  once.  He 
asked  for  the  people  whom  he  had  met  when  he  had  visited 
in  our  town  as  a  child.  He  brought  us  cheerful  messages 
from  his  uncle's  family,  and  he  related  a  few  hilarious  tales 
of  his  experiences  in  learning  to  fly.  He  seemed  inter- 
ested in  all  that  we  had  to  say,  and  followed  up  every  con- 
versational lead  with  a  few  ideas  of  his  own.  If  the  talk 
ever  gave  signs  of  lagging,  he  was  ready  with  a  question 
or  a  remark.  He  was  in  no  sense  fresh;  he  was  simply 
alert  and  ready  to  do  his  share  of  the  social  drudgery.  He 
showed  that  he  had  made  the  most  of  his  social  expe- 
riences.   He  rose  at  a  quarter  past  eight. 

"I  knew  it  was  a  shame  to  disturb  you  on  an  evening 
like  this,"  he  said,  "when  you'd  no  doubt  far  rather  read 
than  be  bored  by  me,  but  it  will  please  mother  to  know  that 
I've  called,  and  you've  given  me  an  awfully  pleasant  half 
hour.  May  I  come  again?  "  He  shook  hands,  and  in  a 
moment  we  heard  his  quick  footsteps  going  down  the  walk. 

"What  a  nice  boy  Billy  Charters  is,"  my  wife  said  to 
me  as  we  were  going  up  stairs  after  a  pleasant  two  hours 
of  reading.  "  I  beheve  we  ought  to  ask  him  to  dinner  next 
Sunday," 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  127 

"That's  just  what  I  was  thinking,"  I  replied.  And  yet 
all  the  difference  between  Billy  and  Barker  was  that  Billy 
had  learned  by  observation  and  experience  and  Barker  had 
not. 

Too  much  of  the  social  energy  of  the  high  school  boy  at 
the  present  time,  especially  in  his  relations  with  girls,  is 
expended  in  dancing.  There  is  scarcely  an  organization  of 
young  fellows,  no  matter  what  its  primary  purpose  seems  to 
have  been,  whether  athletic,  philanthropic,  religious  or  ed- 
ucational, which  does  not,  when  it  comes  to  any  expression 
of  social  life,  think  first  of  giving  a  dance.  It  seems,  bar- 
ring the  practice  of  strolling  aimlessly  about  the  streets,  the 
only  way  a  boy  can  conceive  of  to  give  a  girl  a  good  time. 
He  could  play  tennis  with  her,  if  he  only  thought  so,  and, 
even  if  her  serve  is  not  so  good  as  his,  it  might  improve 
from  practice  and  under  his  careful  teaching.  He  could 
develop  her  interest  and  her  skill  at  golf  and  by  so  do- 
ing contribute  to  her  pleasure  and  her  physical  health. 
He  could  take  her  for  a  walk  into  the  country,  he  could 
teach  her  to  row  a  boat  or  to  drive  a  car,  or  perhaps  some 
time  she  might  teach  him  one  of  these  things.  He  may 
object  to  some  of  these  pastimes  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  too  strenuous  and  tiring,  but  I  am  sure  it 
can  easily  be  shown  that  to  drag  oneself  over  a  none 
too  smooth  floor  for  four  hours  or  so,  in  an  atmosphere 
that  is  often  close  and  stuffy  and  full  of  dust  is  quite  as 
tiring  and  much  less  stimulating  than  is  an  equal  amount 
of  exercise  in  the  open  air.    In  the  open  air,  moreover,  in  the 


128  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

cultivation  of  those  sports  to  which  I  have  referred,  there  is 
a  chance  for  far  more  friendUness  and  far  less  familiarity 
than  in  dancing.  There  is,  too,  the  opportunity  for  the  de- 
velopment of  courtesy  and  thoughtfulness,  for  the  culti- 
vation of  httle  polite  attentions  which  are  good  for  a  boy 
to  know  and  to  practice. 

Before  he  gets  through  the  high  school  a  boy  should 
have  learned  a  good  many  things  about  conventional  so- 
cial customs,  and  should  have  gained  a  certain  respect  for 
them.  In  themselves  these  customs  may  mean  very  little, 
but  observance  of  them  marks  us  as  experienced  and 
thoughtful,  and  failure  to  observe  them  generally  indicates 
that  we  are  crude  and  careless.  It  is  a  little  thing  to  call 
after  one  has  been  invited  to  dinner,  to  rise  when  a  lady 
comes  into  the  room,  to  speak  to  the  hostess  or  the  chap- 
erones  at  a  party,  to  take  your  hat  off  when  you  talk  to  a 
woman  on  the  street,  or  to  eliminate  ''say"  and  "listen" 
when  beginning  a  conversation,  but  these  are  the  little 
things  which  prove  either  that  one  has  kept  his  eyes  open 
and  has  seen  how  really  careful,  experienced  people  act,  or 
that  one  has  gone  about  with  those  whose  social  activities 
have  been  pretty  limited. 

If  there  were  no  other  reason  for  a  boy's  not  confining 
his  attentions  to  but  one  girl  the  reason  I  have  suggested 
above  would  be  sufficient.  Social  activities  are  for  train- 
ing as  well  as  for  pleasure.  Through  his  associations  with 
other  young  people  a  boy  comes  to  know  how  to  adapt 
himself  to  varying  conditions  and  varying  temperaments. 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  129 

He  learns  how  easily  to  meet  different  sorts  of  people  and 
ultimately  to  enjoy  different  sorts.  The  man  who  travels 
from  one  state  to  another  or  from  one  county  to  another 
comes  in  time  to  have  a  broader  view  of  things.  He  gains 
in  experience  at  each  new  stopping  place,  he  finds  new 
pleasures  and  new  interests  wherever  he  goes,  and  more 
than  this  he  develops  new  powers  of  enjoyment.  The  man 
who  knows  but  one  city  or  who  has  lived  in  a  country  town 
all  his  life  does  not  know  what  his  powers  of  enjoyment 
are  until  he  has  given  himself  a  chance  to  see  what  other 
places  there  are  to  give  him  pleasure.  So  every  young 
t)oy  in  the  developing  of  friendly  relationships  between 
his  boy  and  girl  associates  should  give  himself  as  diversi- 
fied an  acquaintance  as  possible.  The  more  people  he 
knows  the  better;  the  more  girls  he  knows  the  safer  for 
him.  It  is  only  through  experience  and  the  testing  of  our- 
selves that  we  really  come  to  know  the  sort  of  people  the 
association  with  whom  will  give  us  most  help  and  most 
happiness. 

I  have  seen  a  good  many  young  fellows  who  in  high 
school  settled  their  girl  friendships  for  life.  It  is  usually  a 
mistake.  Boys  are  too  inexperienced  and  too  immature 
at  that  age  to  determine  what  will  satisfy  them  later  in 
life.  High  school  friendships  are  healthy  and  stimulating; 
high  school  engagements  are  more  often  than  otherwise  a 
handicap  to  intellectual  and  business  progress.  The  high 
school  boy  who  comes  to  college  engaged  to  be  married  sel- 
dom does  well  in  college,  and  is  unlikely  to  get  out  of  col- 


130  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

lege  life  as  much  as  he  should.  He  is  like  the  college  boy 
who  always  goes  home  at  week  ends;  his  interests  are  di- 
vided, his  heart  is  in  two  places,  and  he  does  justice  to 
neither. 

In  his  eagerness  for  a  good  time  the  boy,  like  his  older 
brother  at  times,  is  rather  careless  in  his  choice  of  his  girl 
associates.  He  chooses  the  girl  who  is  a  "good  fellow," 
who  is  not  too  prudish  and  exacting  in  her  insistence  upon 
conventionalities,  who  is  ready  for  any  sort  of  lark,  and 
who,  while  she  is  not  in  any  sense  of  disreputable  character, 
is  at  least  careless  and  thoughtless  and  "easy"  to  get  on 
with.  She  does  not  hold  him  to  his  best  behavior  or  criti- 
cise him  when  he  is  careless  in  his  talk  or  famihar  in  his 
manner.  It  is  doubtful  if  such  a  relationship,  and  there 
are  far  too  many  of  them,  results  in  any  more  enjoyment  to 
either  of  the  persons  concerned.  It  is  quite  certain  that 
such  a  girl  always  loses  the  respect  of  the  boy  who  takes 
advantage  of  her  weakness  and  carelessness,  neither  de- 
rives any  helpful  social  training  from  the  relationship, 
and  one  of  them  at  least  loses  something  of  idealism  and 
cleanness  of  character. 

I  watched  a  cheap  show  unload  at  the  railway  station 
the  other  day.  It  had  come  to  town  for  a  nine-days  run 
in  the  open  air.  There  were  following  it  all  sorts  of  care- 
less and  disreputable  women.  The  disheartening  thing 
about  it  all  was  the  rapidity  with  which  these  women 
picked  up  the  young  boys  standing  about.  Most  of 
these  young  fellows  had  no  evil  intentions,  but  the  daring 


SOCIAL  ACTIVITIES  131 

and  the  adventure  appealed  to  them.  They  thought  it 
was  good  fun;  it  was  something  to  joke  about  later.  I 
wish  I  could  make  it  clear  that  nothing  stains  a  boy's 
character  and  lowers  his  ideals,  nothing  leaves  so  per- 
manent a  vulgar  impression  upon  his  mind  as  associating 
with  women  whose  character  is  low.  It  leaves  the  stain 
that  will  not  come  off. 

A  boy  who  wants  to  get  the  greatest  good  and  the 
greatest  permanent  satisfaction  and  happiness  out  of  life 
will  keep  his  social  relationships  on  the  highest  possible 
plane.  The  girl  who  keeps  him  at  a  distance,  who  holds 
him  to  his  best  manners  and  his  best  behavior  is  giving 
him  the  best  training  and  in  reality  the  best  time. 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS 

I  was  looking  through  the  book  shelves  the  other  day 
in  search  of  a  misplaced  book  which  I  was  wanting,  when 
I  came  upon  a  pretentious  volume  that  took  me  back  al- 
most to  the  beginning  of  time  for  me.  GaskelVs  Com- 
pendium of  Forms  it  was  called,  and  a  perusal  of  it  was 
guaranteed  to  prepare  one  thoroughly  for  every  line  of 
endeavor,  and  for  every  emergency  of  life.  The  author 
was  equally  at  home  in  science  and  in  literature,  in  religion 
and  in  art,  and  in  all  the  finesse  of  social  etiquette  and  po- 
etic expression. 

I  was  fifteen  when  I  bought  it,  filled  with  the  first  im- 
pulses to  attain  a  distinct  social  success  in  the  rural  com- 
munity in  which  I  lived,  and  yet  modest  enough  to  admit 
that  there  were  many  of  the  graces  of  society  which  I  had 
not  yet  acquired,  and  many  of  the  exactions  of  good  man- 
ners with  which  I  was  not  familiar.  A  smooth-tongued 
college  student,  trying  to  earn  enough  money  during  the 
summer  to  keep  him  going  through  the  winter,  sold  it 
to  me,  and  guaranteed  it  to  give  satisfaction  or  the  money 
would  be  refunded.  The  price  was  $5.50  in  exquisite  silk 
cloth  and  S7.00  in  full  morocco. 

The  book  contained  everything  from  how  to  grow  beets 
to  the  ten  commandments;  it  gave  explicit  information  on 
the  widest  variety  of  topics  from  how  to  open  a  set  of  ac- 

132 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  133 

counts  to  the  proper  method  of  approaching  a  young 
woman  with  an  offer  of  marriage.  I  can  not  say  that  it  ever 
got  me  very  far,  however,  in  any  of  the  arts  which  it  pro- 
fessed to  teach  except,  perhaps,  to  impress  me  more 
strongly  with  my  ignorance,  to  convince  me  of  how  little 
of  maimers  and  morals  may  be  learned  from  books,  and 
yet  to  cause  me  to  see  how  necessary  it  is  that  we  have 
some  knowledge  of  these  things  and  practice  them  early 
in  life.  The  ill-mannered,  crude  boy  in  high  school  seldom, 
in  my  experience,  develops  into  the  gracious,  easy  man- 
nered man.  The  high  school  age  is  the  habit-forming  age; 
it  is  the  age  when  principles  of  action  are  developed,  and 
when  moral  and  social  ideals  are  set  up.  For  these  things 
the  school  and  the  home  have  pretty  heavy  responsibilities 
resting  upon  them,  and  these  things  are  not  likely  to  be 
learned  from  books. 

We  are  tremendously  practical  these  days.  Our  idea 
of  education  is  that  it  consists  mostly  of  facts  and  general 
information  concerning  mathematics  and  literature  and 
science  and  language.  We  must  know  the  immediate  and 
practical  purpose  of  these  facts,  too,  if  we  consent  to  as- 
similate them.  The  average  boy  who  follows  a  curricu- 
lum in  high  school  or  who  studies  any  particular  subject 
wants  to  be  shown  where  he  will  profit  by  it.  Unless  he 
can  see  that  he  can  cash  in  on  his  work  before  he  has  gone 
far,  his  enthusiasm  wanes.  The  doing  of  a  thing  for  its 
own  sake  makes  no  appeal  to  him;  there  must  be  a  definite 
and  specific  financial  consideration  assured  him. 


134  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

There  are  few  things,  excepting  good  morals,  which  are 
of  more  real  value  to  a  boy  than  good  taste  and  good  man- 
mers;  they  are  among  the  things  that  pay.  Both  the  prin- 
ciples and  the  practice  should  be  learned  in  school,  for 
principles  here  are  of  little  value  unless  they  can  be  car- 
ried into  practice  every  day  on  the  street,  in  the  home, 
and  in  the  classroom.  I  asked  a  well-known  engineer  in 
New  Haven  once  what  advice  he  would  give  to  a  young 
technical  man  who  was  hunting  a  job. 

"Tell  him,"  was  the  answer,  "to  choose  his  neckties 
thoughtfully  and  to  be  careful  of  his  manners." 

I  asked  another  prominent  man  of  affairs  not  long 
ago  what  special  criticism  he  made  of  the  young  fellows 
who  came  to  him  for  employment. 

"Their  English  is  poor,  and  their  laundry  bills  too 
small,"  was  his  reply. 

Good  manners  will  accomplish  a  great  deal  for  a  boy 
when  other  things  fail.  As  an  executive  officer,  I  am 
charged  with  the  responsibility  of  giving  or  denying 
special  privileges  to  students  in  the  institution  to  which 
I  belong.  I  try  to  be  as  consistent  and  unprejudiced 
as  any  one  with  human  instincts  and  emotions  can  be, 
and  yet  I  am  sure  I  am  often  uneven  in  my  decisions; 
I  am  often  "worked,"  as  boys  say. 

Carter  came  in  at  Thanksgiving  time  to  ask  for  an 
extension  of  leave.  He  is  a  freshman  and  had  not  been 
home  since  September.  His  case  was  fair,  but  he  presented 
it  badly.     When  I  hesitated,  he  grew  irritated  and  as- 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  135 

sumed  a  rather  arrogant  and  impudent  manner.  If  I 
did  not  let  him  go  it  was  a  "rotten  shame,"  and  not  in 
any  sense  giving  him  a  "square  deal,"  he  asserted.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  refuse  his  request  if  I  were  to 
keep  my  self-respect,  and  he  flushed  hot  and  banged 
the  door  furiously  as  he  went  out. 

Then  Hughes  came  in,  smiling  and  gracious  and 
frank. 

"  We  boys  are  a  terrible  bother  to  you,  aren't  we  ?  " 
he  began. 

"Not   always,"    I    said.      "What   would   you   like?" 

"It's  nervy  in  me  to  ask,  I  know,"  he  went  on,  "but 
I  don't  want  to  come  back  until  Tuesday  morning  after 
Thanksgiving.  I  haven't  much  of  an  excuse  you'll  think, 
but  there's  a  party  Monday  night,  and  there's  a  girl 
at  home  I  know,  and — and  I'd  like  to  take  her  to  the 
party."    He  looked  up  blushing. 

Well,  there  was  a  girl  once  I  knew — there  is  yet  in 
fact — whom  I  liked  tremendously  well  to  take  to  a  party. 

"That'll  be  all  right,  Hughes,"  I  said;  "give  her  my 
love." 

Now,  when  I  thought  it  over  at  night,  I  wasn't  quite 
sure  that  I'd  been  fair  to  Carter.  He  had  as  good  a  case 
as  Hughes;  he  had  simply  put  it  unfortunately.  He 
didn't  have  good  manners,  and  I  had  refused  him  only 
because  he  was  not  quite  polite.  I  have  an  idea  that 
many  people  do  the  same  sort  of  thing  for  a  similar  reason. 

Good  manners  must  be  genuine  to  make  a  permanent 


136  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

impression,  must  be  based  upon  a  real  desire  to  give 
pleasure  and  comfort  to  others.  When  people  first  met 
McKee  they  thought  him  the  most  charming  boy  im- 
aginable. He  was  always  on  his  feet  when  a  lady  came 
into  the  room;  he  never  talked  to  a  girl  without  taking 
off  his  hat,  as  any  polite  boy  would  do;  he  showed  all 
the  externals  of  respect  for  his  teachers  and  for  his  elders. 
He  was  as  punctilious  in  standing  at  attention  and  say- 
ing ''sir"  as  a  boy  just  out  of  military  school.  He  was 
quiet,  attentive,  and  thoughtful.  But  when  one  came 
to  know  him  better  one  realized  that  he  was  tricky, 
deceitful,  given  to  profane  and  vulgar  talk.  His  ap- 
parent politeness  was  only  a  subterfuge  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  selfish  purposes.  When  those  who  had 
to  associate  with  him  found  out  his  real  character,  his 
false  politeness  became  an  insult  and  a  lie. 

A  boy  is,  of  course,  supposed  to  learn  good  manners 
at  home,  but  as  often  as  not  he  fails.  He  is  not  judged 
at  home  with  an  impartial  eye;  his  little  slips  are  over- 
looked or  condoned.  If  he  is  the  youngest  or  the  only 
child  or  the  child  of  well-to-do  parents,  he  is  usually 
spoiled  and  made  selfish,  and  as  I  have  just  said,  the 
selfish  boy  is  seldom  polite.  Sometimes  he  comes  from 
a  home  where  the  courtesies  of  life  are  little  known  or  still 
less  practiced,  and  where  there  is  little  for  him  to  learn. 
In  more  cases  than  otherwise  it  falls  back  upon  the  schools 
and  especially  upon  the  high  school  and  the  academy 
to  inculcate  in  him  the  principles  of  good  manners.     It 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  137 

is  upon  his  teacher  that  he  must  rely  both  for  princi- 
ples and  for  illustration  of  their  practice. 

There  was  a  letter  in  my  morning  mail  a  few  days 
ago  from  Porter  that  brought  me  pleasure  and  surprise. 
Most  of  my  letters  from  undergraduates  begin:  "You 
will  no  doubt  be  surprised  to  hear  from  me,  but  the  fact 
is  I  want  something,"  but  Porter  wanted  nothing.  He 
is  only  seventeen.  His  father  is  a  working  man;  his 
mother  is  without  education  and  is  busy  from  dawn  to 
dark  with  the  household  cares  incident  to  a  large  family. 
The  boy  has  had  no  social  experience;  and  one  could  not 
reasonably  expect  much  social  finesse  in  him.  The  note 
which  he  had  written  me  was  carefully  written,  in  un- 
questionably good  form.  It  was  frank  and  boyish  but 
phrased  in  as  throughly  good  taste  as  might  have  been 
shown  by  a  trained  social  secretary. 

I  had  done  the  boy  a  trifling  kindness  when  he  was 
ill  in  the  hospital — an  attention  which  a  thousand  boys 
had  received  from  my  hands — or  yours  perhaps — be- 
fore and  had  passed  by  unnoticed  and  unacknowledged. 
His  note  was  to  express  his  appreciation  of  my  courtesy 
and  to  thank  me  for  it.  It  had  pleased  both  him  and 
his  parents,  he  said,  to  have  me  come  and  see  him,  and 
the  book  I  had  loaned  him  he  had  thoroughly  enjoyed. 
His  thoughtfulness  touched  me;  it  made  me  happy  all 
day  long,  and  it  left  a  pleasant  memory  which  will  not 
soon  fade.  I  knew  where  he  received  his  inspiration. 
It  was  from  some  teacher  in  the  high  school — sensible, 


138  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

sympathetic — who  had  given  him  the  idea  and  left  the 
impression  in  his  mind. 

In  contrast  to  this  was  another  experience  I  had  only 
a  little  while  ago.  A  young  fellow  came  to  see  me  who 
had  been  dismissed  from  one  institution  and  who  wished 
to  enter  another.  He  was  the  son  of  a  well-to-do  man; 
he  had  been  brought  up  under  good  social  conditions; 
he  might  very  reasonably  have  been  expected  to  have 
an  acquaintance  with  good  social  form.  I  listened  to 
his  story,  and  I  saw  that  his  situation  was  a  most  diffi- 
cult one  and  one  that  very  much  required  that  he  have 
a  friend  at  court  to  make  a  strong  plea  for  him.  I  had 
never  seen  him  before,  but  I  undertook  to  help  him.  I 
wrote  a  letter  to  a  college  officer  in  another  institution, 
a  man  with  whom  I  had  an  intimate  acquaintance,  and  I 
gave  it  to  the  boy.  I  learned  afterwards  that  it  accom- 
plished the  purpose  for  which  it  was  written  and  se- 
cured for  the  young  fellow  admission  to  the  other  institu- 
tion. I  have  no  recollection  that  he  thanked  me  when  I 
gave  him  the  letter,  and  I  know  that  he  has  not  done  so 
since.  I  have  never  had  a  word  from  him,  and  some  way 
I  can't  help  but  wonder  who  taught  him  English  com- 
position in  high  school,  who  is  responsible  for  his  manners. 

A  friend  of  mine  not  long  ago  invited  to  dinner  a  half 
dozen  boys  just  out  of  high  school  and  away  from  home 
for  the  first  time.  The  invitation  was  given  in  all  kind- 
ness. She  hoped  to  give  pleasure  to  young  fellows  whom 
she  imagined  to  be  homesick,  and  it  was  at  no  little 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  139 

trouble  and  self-sacrifice  that  she  prepared  the  meal. 
Two  of  the  boys  did  not  reply  at  all  to  her  note,  the  other 
four  accepted  her  invitation,  but  only  two  showed  up 
at  the  dinner.  Not  one  has  called  on  her  or  in  any  way 
acknowledged  her  courtesy  since,  and  yet  they  had  all 
come  from  excellent  high  schools  and  some  of  them  had 
been  brought  up  in  families  who  admitted  they  were 
above  the  middle  classes.  It  was  annoying  to  the  hostess, 
but,  of  course,  the  person  who  really  suffered  the  most 
was  the  boy  himself  whose  training  had  been  so  inade- 
quate. 

Every  autumn  I  watch  the  long  Hne  of  freshmen  just 
out  of  the  academy  or  the  high  school  as  they  go 
through  the  preliminary  steps  to  enter  college.  The 
registrar's  office  is  just  across  the  hall  from  my  own. 
Half  the  boys  do  business  with  their  hats  on,  though 
most  of  the  registrar's  clerks  are  young  women,  and 
other  attractive  young  women  are  standing  about  them 
■ — standing  sometimes  even  when  the  young  men  are 
sitting.  Taking  the  hat  off  is,  of  course,  only  a  con- 
vention meaningless  in  itself,  but  it  has  come  to  suggest 
respect  for  women,  respect  for  authority,  respect  for 
the  house  that  shelters  us,  and  no  gentleman  can  afford 
to  ignore  it.  I  see  these  same  boys  later  smoking  at 
parties  or  as  they  walk  down  the  street  with  young  women, 
unconscious  of  the  fact  that  by  so  doing  they  are  pro- 
claiming their  lack  of  good  breeding. 

There  are  a  thousand  courtesies  and  conventions  to  be 


140  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

learned  in  high  school — courtesies  to  women,  respect  for 
authority,  the  acknowledgment  of  kindnesses  received, 
attention  to  the  wishes  and  comforts  of  others,  regard  for 
one's  elders,  attention  to  the  conventionalities  of  the 
society  in  which  we  live,  the  expression  of  sjrmpathy  in  sor- 
row, of  joy  in  success,  of  congratulation  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  what  our  friends  and  acquaintances  have  at- 
tempted. Much  of  this  finds  expression  in  the  thoughtful 
words  which  we  may  utter  when  face  to  face  with  friends, 
but  more  of  it  will  be  seen  in  the  note  of  thanks  or  congrat- 
ulation or  condolence  which  requires  only  a  few  moments 
to  write  and  which  brings  the  greater  pleasure  often  be- 
cause it  is  unexpected.  A  brief,  frank,  well- worded  note 
will  often  bring  more  pleasure  to  the  recipient  than  a 
costly  gift. 

But  after  all  you  must  have  something  more  than  mere 
good  manners.  Every  day,  almost,  I  am  called  upon 
to  write  letters  recommending  young  fellows  whom  I 
have  known  while  they  were  in  college.  Those  who  make 
inquiry  always  want  information  in  very  specific  things. 
Is  the  man  honest,  can  his  word  be  relied  upon,  is  he  a 
fellow  of  clean  and  temperate  habits,  does  he  gamble? 
The  men  themselves  who  ask  these  questions  may  not  be 
wholly  exemplary  in  their  own  conduct,  but  they  do  not 
care  to  employ  men  who  can  not  furnish  a  clean  record. 
It  is  during  the  years  of  physical  and  mental  development 
in  the  high  school  that  moral  principles  are  formulated 
and  strengthened  quite  as  much  as  at  home. 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  141 

Sometimes  the  boy  with  good  mamiers  and  rather  un- 
certain morals  seems  to  manage  as  well  as  if  his  principles 
of  conduct  were  quite  above  reproach.  One  of  the  best- 
mannered  boys  I  have  ever  known  was  of  this  sort.  He 
wa,s  good-tempered,  polite,  thoughtful  of  others,  clever, 
a  veritable  Steerforth,  in  fact.  He  never  seemed  either  to 
say  or  do  the  tactless  thing,  and  he  was  loved  by  many 
people  and  thought  charming  by  more.  But  one  did  not 
know  him  long  until  it  became  evident  that  he  was  selfish. 
He  never  did  a  kindness  that  involved  a  personal  sacrifice. 
He  never  gave  up  or  resisted  anything  that  furnished  him 
personal  or  physical  pleasure.  The  result  was  inevitable. 
He  made  friends  only  to  use  them  for  his  own  ends;  he 
was  honest  only  when  honesty  subserved  his  purpose.  He 
wasted  his  money,  he  learned  to  gamble,  to  drink,  to  en- 
gage in  the  most  unclean  practices  simply  because  he  had 
no  real  moral  principles.  He  is  charming  still  at  forty, 
but  no  one  trusts  him;  he  picks  up  a  precarious  liveli- 
hook  by  the  most  irregular  business  methods.  He  might 
have  been  anything  he  chose  if  he  had  been  honest  and 
clean. 

Sometimes  the  boy  with  good  morals  and  without  the 
finesse  of  good  manners  grows  a  trifle  discouraged. 

"It  doesn't  pay,"  he  affirms.  "It  is  the  smooth  guy 
who  gets  by." 

He  finds  himself  unpopular,  ignored,  made  fun  of,  and 
he  attributes  the  result  to  his  rigid  principles  rather  than 
to  his  lack  of  tact,  or  to  his  crude  manners.    A  boy  with 


142  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

good  principles  and  good  manners  is  invincible.  He  has 
friends,  he  commands  respect,  he  has  two  strong  and 
trusty  weapons  with  which  to  combat  temptation  and  to 
meet  difficulty. 

First  of  all  you  will  have  to  be  honest.  The  line  be- 
tween what  is  honest  and  what  is  not  is  not  so  widely 
drawn  even  among  men  of  experience  that  it  is  not  strange 
that  young  boys  should  often  become  confused  in  the 
matter,  and  yet  the  distinction  between  what  is  mine  and 
what  is  thine,  between  borrowing  and  theft,  between 
crime  and  a  practical  joke  ought  to  be  distinguishable. 

Few  boys  would  give  a  burglar  a  leg  into  the  window  of 
a  house  which  he  was  about  to  rob,  yet  it  takes  more  prin- 
ciple than  most  boys  possess  to  refuse  to  give  help  to  a 
needy  friend  or  even  to  a  passing  acquaintance  who  asks 
for  it  in  a  school  examination.  If  he  demurs  at  all,  it  is 
quite  as  often  from  the  fear  of  being  detected  as  from  any 
moral  principle  which  actuates  him,  though  one  act  is  as 
undeniably  dishonest  as  the  other.  I  have  put  the  question 
to  scores  of  boys,  yet  I  have  seen  few  who  did  not  feel  that 
it  was  rather  a  virtue  than  otherwise  to  help  a  man  who  is 
in  trouble  even  though  the  help  was  simply  an  aid  to  dis- 
honesty. I  have  even  known  fathers  who,  while  they 
would  have  been  sorry  to  have  their  sons  crib,  were  yet 
rather  proud  that  these  same  sons  had  aided  some  one  else 
to  be  dishonest. 

There  is  often  a  feeling  among  boys,  also,  that  an  exam- 
ination in  school  is  not  a  test  of  their  knowledge  but  a  con- 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  143 

test  between  teacher  and  pupil — something  similar,  in 
fact,  to  love  or  war  where  anything  is  fair  if  it  is  not  found 
out.  They  do  not  realize  that  when  they  write  their 
names  on  an  examination,  they  are  virtually  saying  "  The 
contents  of  this  paper  are  absolutely  mine." 

''I  must  run  along,"  a  high  school  boy  calling  at  my 
house  said  to  me  not  many  evenings  ago.  "I  have  to 
write  a  theme  for  Blanche;  she  loaned  me  her  algebra  prob- 
blems,  and  I  must  pay  her  back." 

His  is  a  common  practice,  but  it  is  the  beginning  of  a 
sort  of  dishonesty  which  helps  to  weaken  principle  and  to 
undermine  good  scholarship. 

A  young  friend  of  mine  came  home  from  school  one  even- 
ing in  spring  with  a  big  bunch  of  roses  in  his  hands. 

"Where  did  you  get  the  flowers,  John?"  his  father  in- 
quired. 

"Out  of  Mrs.  Perkins'  yard,"  was  the  reply. 

"Did  she  give  them  to  you?" 

"No,  Fred  and  I  just  took  them." 

Fred  was  standing  by  holding  an  even  larger  bunch. 

"Go  to  Mrs.  Perkins  and  give  her  back  the  roses,"  the 
father  said,  "and  tell  her  that  you  didn't  realize  when  you 
took  them  that  you  were  actually  stealing." 

"But,  father,  I  don't  know  Mrs.  Perkins,"  John  pro- 
tested. 

"  You'll  know  her  when  you  have  had  this  talk  with  her," 
was  the  reassuring  reply,  "and  I'm  sure  you  will  find  it 
easier  next  time  not  to  take  other  people's  property." 


144  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

"I  should  not  have  humiliated  my  son  in  that  way," 
Fred's  father  said  to  John's  later  when  they  were  talking 
the  matter  over. 

"Such  a  trifling  humiliation  is  not  to  be  considered," 
the  other  man  replied,  "if  I  help  to  make  my  son 
honest." 

I  was  going  down  town  not  long  ago,  and  I  invited  Bill 
to  go  with  me.  We  were  to  take  the  street  car,  and  it  was 
naturally  to  be  supposed  that,  since  I  had  extended  the 
invitation  to  him,  I  would  be  responsible  for  the  fare.  I 
ran  my  hand  into  my  pocket  as  we  started  and  found  a 
quarter  there,  so  I  knew  that  I  could  finance  the  trip 
easily.  We  did  our  errand,  and  were  on  the  car  coming 
back  when  I  discovered  that  I  still  had  the  twenty-five 
cerits  unbroken  in  my  pocket.  The  conductor  on  the 
down  trip  had  evidently  passed  me  up  when  collecting 
fares,  and  it  had  escaped  my  notice.  As  he  came  up  to  me 
now,  I  handed  him  the  coin,  saying  "  Two  fares. "  He  rang 
up  two  but  gave  me  twenty  cents  in  change. 

"What  shall  I  do? "  I  asked  Bill.  "We  did  not  pay  our 
fares  going  down,  and  the  conductor  has  just  short  changed 
himself  a  nickel." 

"Your're  a  fool  if  you  give  the  man  the  fare  for  the 
down  town  trip,  but  you  should  pay  him  the  nickel  on 
which  he  just  now  made  a  mistake." 

"Why?"  I  inquired. 

"The  dime  is  the  company's  loss,  and  it  was  their  fault 
they  didn't  collect  it.    The  conductor  will  have  to  make 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  145 

good  on  the  nickel  when  he  cashes  in,  if  you  don't  give  it 
to  him." 

I  have  put  the  case  up  to  a  hundred  boys  since  that  time, 
and  they  have  all  given  me  the  same  answer.  It  is  all 
right,  they  think,  to  steal  from  a  corporation,  but  not 
quite  honest  to  steal  from  an  individual  or  profit  by  his 
mistake.  They  fail  to  see  that  real  honesty  will  not  per- 
mit us  to  steal  from  anyone. 

I  have  done  business  for  many  years  with  all  kinds  of 
boys — the  lazy  and  the  shiftless,  the  selfish  and  the  care- 
less, those  who  have  been  thoughtless  and  those  who  have 
been  dissipated  and  immoral.  I  can  get  on  better  with 
any  one  else  than  the  liar.  Truth  is  at  the  foundation  of 
confidence;  no  business  can  be  done  satisfactorily  with- 
out it;  it  is  one  of  the  cardinal  principles  of  character. 
There  is,  of  course,  too,  the  half  truth  that  is  the  worst 
sort  of  lie — the  words  which  are  themselves  not  false  in 
their  meaning,  but  which  are  so  uttered  as  to  convey  false 
impression. 

Robey,  whose  allowance  was  quite  adequate,  had  been 
very  neglectful  in  the  payment  of  some  of  his  bills.  I 
spoke  to  him  about  the  matter,  and  he  assured  me  he 
would  take  care  of  the  bills  at  once.  A  month  later  I 
found  that  he  was  still  owing  on  one  of  the  old  ac- 
counts. 

"I  have  written  the  check  today,"  he  said  when  I  called 
him  the  second  time.  I  said  nothing  more,  because  to  my 
mind  his  statement  meant  that  the  bill  was  paid.    I  was 


146  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

very  much  surprised  to  find  six  weeks  later  that  nothing 
had  been  done  about  the  matter. 

"I'm  afraid  you  did  not  tell  me  the  truth,"  I  said  to 
Robey  when  he  came  in  response  to  my  call. 

"I  didn't  tell  you  I'd  paid  the  bill,"  he  said  in  explana- 
tion, "I  said  I 'd  written  the  check.    I  just  didn't  send  it." 

"But  you  meant  me  to  think  you  had  sent  it,  didn't 
you?" 

"I  suppose  so." 

And  now  Robey  thinks  it  a  trifle  unfair  when  I  hesitate 
to  take  his  statements  of  fact  without  pretty  careful  analy- 
sis. 

Sometimes  it  is  hard  to  tell  the  truth — especially  when 
it  involves  some  one  else  or  reflects  upon  your  own  char- 
acter or  conduct.  There  is,  in  my  estimation  at  least,  a 
generally  prevalent  false  sense  of  honor  which  makes  it 
wrong  to  tell  the  truth  when  the  facts  if  known  would  not 
be  creditable  to  some  one  else.  I  have  never  understood 
why.  It  is  certainly  not  so  in  legal  proceeding  or  in 
adult  life.  It  demands  unusual  courage  often  to  tell  the 
truth  especially  when  the  consequences  might  be  avoided. 

McDonald  was  waiting  for  me  when  I  came  into  the  of- 
fice one  morning  a  short  time  ago. 

"I  want  to  tell  you  something,"  he  said.  "It  isn't 
creditable  to  me,  and  possibly  you'll  think  when  I'm 
through  that  I'm  a  pretty  poor  chap;  but  I  want  to  get  it 
off  my  mind.  I've  got  to  have  my  own  self-respect  if  I'm 
to  be  happy." 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  147 

Then  he  told  me  that  when  he  had  presented  his  cred- 
its from  high  school  in  the  fall,  the  record  had  not  been 
correct — he  had  been  given  credit  for  subjects  which  he 
had  never  taken,  and,  though  he  recognized  the  mistake, 
he  had  said  nothing  about  it.  Now  he  wanted  the  mat- 
ter straightened  out,  even  if  he  were  dismissed  from  col- 
lege. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  to  me?"  he  asked  when 
he  was  through  with  his  story — a  story  which  he  had  told 
with  much  embarrassment. 

"We'll  first  have  your  high  school  record  corrected,"  I 
said,  "and  then  we'll  forget  all  about  the  rest  of  the  story. 
Only  I  want  to  say  that  you  are  a  thousand  times  better 
and  stronger  boy  for  having  told  tho  truth." 

I  said  that  many  boys  find  it  embarrassing  and  diffi- 
cult to  tell  the  truth  when  the  facts  to  be  revealed  are 
discreditable  to  some  one  else.  I  have  no  reference  to 
trifling  derelictions  which  are  often  a  matter  of  personal 
opinion  and  which  do  not  concern  the  well-being  of  the 
community,  but  to  matters  of  real  moral  significance 
which  vitally  affect  the  interests  of  others.  In  the  former 
case  every  sensible  person  would  respect  the  boy  who  re- 
fused to  say  anything  at  all.  What  I  have  in  mind  con- 
cerns real  immorality. 

There  had  been  in  our  gymnasium  considerable  steal- 
ing of  watches  and  money  and  clothing  of  all  sorts.  I  was 
pretty  well  convinced  who  had  done  it  and  was  trying  to 
confirm  my  convictions.     I  was  sure  that  Moore  would 


148  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

be  able  to  help  me  out  if  he  would  tell  what  he  knew,  and 
I  called  him. 

"I  couldn't  tell  you  about  that,"  he  said,  "I've  been 
brought  up  to  believe  that  it  is  not  honorable  to  give  an- 
other fellow  away." 

"I  respect  the  general  principle,"  I  admitted,  "but 
this  man  is  a  thief  who  is  living  on  the  conmiunity  and  is 
robbing  boys  who  will  be  forced  to  leave  college  if  the 
thing  continues." 

"That  doesn't  make  any  difference,"  Moore  replied. 

Ultimately  the  real  thief  when  he  was  caught  (and  he 
did  prove  to  be  the  acquaintance  of  Moore  whom  I  had 
suspected,)  accused  Moore  of  the  theft,  for  any  thief  will 
lie  in  order  to  cover  up  his  own  dishonesties,  and  he  is  sel- 
dom discriminating  in  choosing  the  men  whom  he  accuses. 

I  have  known  many  boys  with  the  false  standard  of 
responsibility  who  held  that  it  was  wrong  under  any  cir- 
cumstances to  involve  others  than  themselves  in  any  dere- 
liction and  who  considered  that  they  were  doing  a  virtuous 
act  when  they  lied  to  keep  a  guilty  companion  out  of 
trouble.  We  are  forced  to  change  such  standards  as  these 
when  we  become  adult  members  of  society,  for  the  courts 
do  not  allow  such  a  view  point,  but  on  the  other  hand  hold 
that  the  good  citizen  is  not  only  responsible  for  his  own 
conduct  but  must  exercise  restraining  influence  upon  his 
neighbor  and  inform  on  him  if  he  is  a  law  breaker. 

Every  boy  is  under  a  moral  obligation  to  work  hard,  to 
carry  through  what  he  begins  whether  or  not  it  is  agreeable 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  149 

or  interesting,  to  keep  his  promises  even  though  the  keep- 
ing be  difficult  or  disagreeable.  At  home  and  in  school 
we  have  become  so  accustomed  to  following  the  line  of 
least  resistance,  to  choosing  for  study  only  such  subjects 
as  we  find  easy  or  entertaining,  to  doing  only  those  things 
which  we  like,  that  we  balk  when  it  comes  to  any  hard  or 
disagreeable  work. 

Frank's  teacher  in  astronomy  reported  that  he  was  not 
going  to  class.  Since  he  had  signed  up  for  the  course  and 
was  under  obligations  to  attend  it  unless  released  by  the 
Dean,  I  called  him  to  inquire  the  cause  of  his  absence. 

"I  don't  care  for  it/'  he  said.  "It's  hard,  it  doesn't  in- 
terest me  and  I  just  quit  it.  I  don't  see  what  good  astron- 
omy is  going  to  do  me." 

He  had  no  sense  of  obligation  to  carry  through  what  he 
had  begun,  no  pride  whatsoever  in  his  class  record.  He  was 
looking  for  the  snap,  for  something  that  in  itself  awakened 
his  interest;  he  had  no  conception  of  the  moral  and  in- 
tellectual benefits  of  hard  work. 

There  is  no  moral  principle  which  is  more  fundamental 
for  the  high  school  boy  to  learn  than  that  which  has  to  do 
with  the  clean  personal  life.  If  the  army  taught  anything, 
it  taught  us  that.  Every  year  I  give  to  the  freshmen  who 
are  just  entering  my  own  institution  from  high  school  a 
series  of  talks  on  personal  hygiene  including  the  dangers 
and  physical  effects  of  drinking  and  of  bad  sexual  prac- 
tices. The  thing  that  surprises  me  always  is  how  little 
they  know  and  how  little  of  what  they  know  is  true.    They 


150  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

have  the  most  distorted  ideas  of  a  normal  healthy  sexual 
life  and  of  the  effects  of  sexual  disease.  If  they  follow  im- 
moral or  intemperate  practices  in  college,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  they  have  begun  these  practices  long  before  they 
were  ready  for  college,  and  have  pitifully  little  conception 
of  the  ultimate  dangers  to  character  and  health  involved. 
A  beginning  in  self-discipline  should  be  made  when  im- 
pulses and  imagination  first  lead  a  boy  into  untoward 
things,  and  this  is  at  the  beginning  of  high  school  rather 
than  at  the  beginning  of  college.  A  boy's  moral  status  is 
pretty  well  settled  when  he  enters  college.  Someone 
should  have  laid  down  for  him  definite  principles  of  per- 
sonal thinking  and  personal  conduct.  Some  one  should 
have  had  the  courage  and  the  tact  to  tell  him  frankly  and 
straightforwardly  of  his  physical  being,  of  the  sacredness 
of  his  body  and  the  necessity  of  his  keeping  it  morally 
clean.  If  this  is  not  done  in  the  high  school,  there  is  very 
little  likelihood  of  its  being  done  at  home. 

A  father  sat  in  my  office  a  few  days  ago  talking  about 
his  freshman  son.  He  had  come  in  response  to  a  letter 
from  me.  The  boy  was  doing  no  good  in  college,  his 
habits  were  bad,  he  was  the  victim  of  disease.  I  told  the 
father  the  wretched  unpleasant  truth  as  gently  as  I  could, 
and  he  seemed  surprised,  stunned. 

"But  my  boy  has  always  been  a  good  boy,"  he  said. 
"How  has  it  been  possible  for  college  to  ruin  him  so 
quickly?" 

"You  are  mistaken,"  I  answered.    "Every  experience 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  151 

he  has  had  in  college  he  had  tried  before  he  eacae.  If 
you  think  I  am  wrong  ask  him. " 

I  knew  I  was  right,  for  the  boy  had  told  me  so,  and  he 
had  told  me  also  that  neither  at  home  nor  in  the  high  school 
had  he  been  given  any  specific  or  friendly  instruction  as 
to  the  danger  to  his  mind  or  to  his  body  of  the  habits  which 
he  began  early  to  form. 

"If  you  want  us  to  live  a  clean  life,  to  stand  for  the 
highest  moral  principles, "  one  of  my  freshmen  said  to  me 
not  long  ago,  "don't  wait  until  we  get  to  college  before 
you  set  before  us  the  ideals  we  should  follow;  begin  in 
high  school  before  we  have  begun  the  practices  which 
are  sometimes  almost  impossible  to  give  up." 

Every  boy  comes  to  the  time  when  his  moral  principles 
are  tested,  when  temptation  stares  him  suddenly  in  the 
face,  when  he  must  prove  to  himself  and  to  his  friends 
whether  these  principles  are  a  pretense  or  a  reality.  As 
their  foundations  were  laid  early,  as  they  have  been  held  to 
firmly  and  honestly  they  will  stand,  for  the  ultimate  test 
of  any  boy's  manners  or  morals  is  how  successfully  he  will 
meet  the  unexpected  social  or  moral  crisis. 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION 

I  suppose  that  at  one  time  or  another  in  his  life,  every 
boy  plans  to  be  a  street  car  conductor  or  a  railroad  en- 
gineer, or  at  least  to  follow  some  pursuit  of  an  active  me- 
chanical nature.  Most  boys  like  to  see  the  wheels  go 
round.  As  for  me,  I  was  determined  to  be  a  doctor.  I  im- 
agine I  was  led  to  this  conclusion  through  watching 
Doctor  Triplett  who  visited  the  sick  in  our  country  com- 
munity in  his  two  wheeled  sulky  drawn  by  a  rangy 
spirited  gray  horse.  It  seemed  to  me  there  would  be  more 
pleasure  and  less  hard  work  in  such  a  vocation  than  in 
any  other  with  which  I  was  familiar.  I  did  not  take  into 
account  the  long  dreary  rides  through  the  bitter  cold  of 
winter  or  the  bottomless  mud  of  early  spring  to  visit 
people  who  never  paid,  perhaps.  I  saw  only  the  pleasant 
side  of  it. 

As  society  is  run  now  it  is  essential  that  every  one  have 
some  business  or  profession  by  means  of  which  he  may  eat 
and  be  clothed  and  have  some  recreation.  Excepting  that 
we  are  healthier  and  happier  as  a  result  of  regular  work, 
and  that  for  most  of  us  it  is  necessary  to  existence,  I  im- 
agine that  most  of  us  would  not  concern  ourselves  as  much 
with  work  as  we  now  do.  I  have  never  believed,  and  a  long 
experience  has  not  tended  to  change  my  opinion,  that  every 
young  fellow  is  cut  out  for  so  definite  and  specific  a  job 

152 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  153 

that  if  he  does  not  hit  upon  this  particular  position,  he  is 
ruined  for  life.  No  more  do  I  think  that  there  is  in  the 
world  somewhere  for  every  man  a  particular  woman, 
whom  he  must  meet  and  win  or  be  forever  unhappy.  Men 
are  for  the  most  part  adaptable;  they  can  as  often  as  other- 
wise fit  equally  well  into  various  positions  or  professions, 
and  can  find  happiness  with  many  sorts  of  people.  A  good 
lawyer  might  very  easily  have  made  an  equally  successful 
physician  if  he  had  gone  into  the  latter  profession  with 
earnestness. 

There  are  in  some  people,  however,  peculiar  weaknesses 
which  are  difficult  to  strengthen;  peculiar  talents  which 
fit  them  for  particular  work.  Some  people  could  be  musi- 
cians or  plumbers  and  little  else.  Such  people  should 
choose  a  profession  thoughtfully  and  carefully.  The  less 
balanced  and  normal  the  brain,  the  less  evenly  developed 
one's  powers  are,  the  more  one  is  a  genius,  the  more  nec- 
essary it  is  that  one  should  get  into  the  kind  of  work  to 
which  he  is  particularly  adapted,  or  evade  that  which 
he  would  find  impossible.  If  a  boy  is  intending  to  study 
engineering  he  should  have  special  ability  and  interest  in 
mathematics;  if  he  is  to  be  a  clergyraan,  he  ought  to  have 
some  leanings  toward  religion.  A  prospective  surgeon 
should  be  adept  in  the  use  of  his  fingers,  and  anyone  pro- 
posing to  study  law  should  be  capable  of  logical  reasoning. 

One  can  not  always  with  certainty  decide  whether 
or  not  he  has  special  fitness  in  one  profession  or  another. 
A  boy's  father  assured  me  not  long  since  that  he  was 


154  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

convinced  his  son  would  make  an  excellent  lawyer  be- 
cause he  was  such  a  ready  talker.  If  the  ability  to  talk 
readily  fitted  one  for  the  practice  of  law,  women,  some 
people  think,  would  have  a  distressing  handicap  over 
men.  Fluent  speech  is,  of  course,  often  a  help  to  a  lawyer 
if  it  is  accompanied  by  other  talents,  but  fluent  speech 
which  is  not  induced  by  logical  reasoning  and  an  accu- 
rate knowledge  of  law  may  as  likely  as  not  be  a  handicap 
instead  of  an  asset  to  a  man  attempting  to  practice  law. 
Lawyers  have  been  known  to  lose  their  cases  by  not  know- 
ing when  to  stop  talking.  Again  parents  frequently  assure 
me  that  their  young  sons  have  unusual  fitness  for  engi- 
neering work  because,  perhaps,  they  have  constructed 
an  electric  motor,  or  made  a  water  wheel,  or  fixed  a 
refractory  lawn  mower.  Such  mechanical  ability  is  often 
an  aid  to  engineering  work,  but  it  is  in  no  way  an  abso- 
lute necessity  or  a  manifestation  of  engineering  genius. 
It  suggests  the  mechanic  rather  than  the  engineer. 

So  far  as  it  is  possible,  however,  one  should  find  out 
whatever  special  fitness  he  may  have  for  any  one  work 
and  devote  himself  to  that.  Teachers  can  help  in  this 
decision;  parents  should  recognize  the  talents  of  their 
children  and  try  to  make  the  most  of  them;  the  boy 
himself  should  analyze  his  own  special  fitness.  I  have 
never  been  sure  as  to  just  how  accurately  the  average 
man  can  judge  of  his  own  individual  ability.  A  shrewd 
executive  whom  I  once  knew  used  to  say  that  when  a 
young  man  confessed  to  more  than  ordinary  skill  in  any 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  155 

one  direction  or  thought  himself  especially  fitted  for  a 
particular  type  of  work,  it  was  rather  conclusive  evidence 
that  he  might  better  take  up  some  other.  However 
that  may  be,  I  have  seldom  in  teaching  English  compo- 
sition, found  that  the  man  who  laid  claim  to  any  particular 
skill  in  writing  actually  possessed  much.  Accurate  self- 
judgment  is  difficult,  but  too  much  self-assurance  is  often 
an  evidence  of  weakness. 

Granted  that  a  boy  has  unusual  mental  gifts;  a  peculiar 
danger  often  confronts  him — the  danger  of  depending 
upon  his  unusual  ability  to  carry  him  through  without 
work.  It  is  an  old  saying  that  the  only  genius  worth 
much  is  the  genius  for  hard  work.  I  have  known  a  few 
geniuses,  but  I  do  not  now  recall  more  than  one  or  two 
who  got  far  in  the  professions  which  they  adopted, 
because  very  few  of  them  were  willing  to  work  regularly 
or  seriously.  Knowing  their  ability,  they  grew  to  depend 
upon  it  to  carry  them  through  at  the  last  moment  with- 
out any  regular  hard  labor  on  their  part;  not  willing  to 
work  hard  and  regularly,  they  did  not  increase  their 
power;  they  were  no  more  able  to  accomplish  results 
at  the  end  of  ten  years  of  practice  than  at  the  beginning 
of  their  careers. 

"Can't  I  come  back  next  September,"  a  freshman 
who  had  failed  asked  me,  "and  start  all  over  again  as 
if  nothing  had  happened?  " 

It  was  hard  for  him  to  see  that  a  year  of  loafing  had 
had  an  effect  on  him  which  could  not  be  eliminated  by 


156  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

forgetting  the  past.  Powers  that  are  not  increased  wane; 
the  mind  will  not  stand  still  in  its  development. 

If  you  are  taking  up  any  work  or  profession  it  is  wisest 
to  understand  beforehand  what  it  involves.  Read  books  on 
the  subject;  if  you  are  thinking  of  engineering  or  medicine 
or  law,  get  hold  of  some  successful  engineer  or  doctor  or 
lawyer  and  ask  hun  about  the  training  necessary  to  suc- 
cess in  his  profession  and  the  difficulties  incident  to  it. 
He  will  probably  advise  you  to  try  some  other  profession. 
He  will  enlarge  on  the  difficulties,  no  doubt,  of  his  own 
particular  calling,  but  this  fact  need  not  serve  to  dis- 
courage you.  You  will  find  often  that  what  on  the  surface 
seemed  easy  sailing  has  been  a  hazardous  voyage  full  of 
storms  and  often  suggestive  of  shipwreck.  Men  will 
advise  you  to  keep  out  of  the  profession  which  they  are 
following,  because  knowing  as  intimately  as  they  do 
the  hardships  of  their  own  calling,  and  being  acquainted 
only  with  the  externals  of  others,  they  imagine  their 
own  to  be  the  most  difficult  and  wearing  and  unsatis- 
factory of  all.  Fathers  especially  are  loath  to  seeing 
their  sons  take  up  the  line  of  work  in  which  they  them- 
selves have  become  established  and  have  succeeded. 

"I  don't  want  my  son  to  take  up  my  profession," 
I  hear  scores  of  fathers  say.  "There  is  nothing  in  it  but 
hard  work." 

So,  too,  men  who  have  come  up  to  affluence  through 
sacrifice  and  toil,  say,  "  I  never  want  my  son  to  go  through 
what  I  have  gone  through,"   not  realizing  that  what 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  157 

they  went  through  gave  them  the  strength  and  the  suc- 
cess which  they  attained. 

There  is  always  the  misleading  suggestion  by  these 
men  that  in  any  other  profession  but  their  own  efficiency 
and  success  are  attained  without  labor,  and  that  hard 
labor  is  if  possible  to  be  avoided,  while  the  truth  of  the 
matter  is  that  no  one  is  likely  to  get  far  in  any  sort  of 
business  without  persistent,  steady,  hard  work.  Don't 
be  discouraged  because  your  proposed  profession  in- 
volves hard  work. 

There  is  often  a  considerable  advantage  to  a  boy 
in  choosing  to  carry  on  the  business  which  his  father 
has  followed.  His  unconscious  observation  of  the  details 
of  his  father's  business  gives  him  a  handicap  over  another 
man  going  into  the  same  business  wholly  without  ex- 
perience. He  is  likely  to  know  more  about  his  father's 
business  than  any  other.  The  counsel  and  advice  which 
the  older  man  could  give  the  younger  should  never  be 
disregarded,  and  the  ready  opening  which  the  younger 
man  might  find  in  his  father's  profession  or  establish- 
ment when  his  education  is  completed  should  not  be 
undervalued.  The  fact  that  such  a  man  will  be  prepared 
for  the  difficulties  and  the  discouragements  of  his  pro- 
fession, and  will  not  be  surprised  or  caught  unawares 
by  them  will  contribute  somewhat  to  his  success.  There 
is  more  independence,  of  course,  in  starting  out  alone, 
and  most  boys  like  so  far  as  possible  to  feel  that  they 
are  under  obligation  to  no  one,  and  have  been  the  cause 


158  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

of  their  own  success.  It  is  better,  however,  to  be  a  good 
farmer  on  the  old  home  place  than  it  is  to  be  a  second- 
rate  engineer  on  your  own  account. 

It  is  usually  a  mistake  to  let  some  one  else  make  the 
choice  for  you,  even  if  the  person  who  offers  to  do  so  or 
who  insists  upon  doing  so  is  your  father  or  mother.  I 
know  parents  who  select  the  professions  for  their  chil- 
dren and  map  out  in  minute  detail  the  line  of  education 
each  one  is  to  follow,  and  who  have  everything  all  settled, 
perhaps,  even  before  the  child  is  born.  It  is  a  process 
which  more  often  than  otherwise  results  in  a  lack  of  en- 
thusiasm if  not  in  failure  on  the  part  of  the  child.  I  can 
at  this  time  recall  only  one  young  fellow  whose  father, 
contrary  to  the  boy's  own  desires,  picked  out  a  profession 
for  his  son,  who  ever  accomplished  much  that  was  worth 
while  in  the  work  he  undertook.  It  is  about  as  safe  to 
allow  some  one  else  to  select  for  you  the  girl  you  are  to 
marry  as  it  is  to  let  him,  without  regard  to  your  interests 
and  desires,  pick  out  for  you  your  life  work.  The  choice 
ought  to  be  your  own. 

Chilton,  stumbling  through  his  sophomore  year  in  col- 
lege, had  been  making  a  sad  failure;  he  showed  no  enthusi- 
asm, no  interest,  no  energy  in  the  work  for  which  he  was 
registered. 

"Why  are  you  taking  engineering?"  I  asked.  "You 
don't  like  mathematics,  and  mechanics  is  a  closed  book 
to  you." 

"Well,  I  never  wanted  to  do  it,"  he  replied.    "  I  really 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  159 

wanted  to  go  into  business,  but  father  insisted  on  my 
studying  engineering  because  tie  thought  it  offered  the 
best  opportunities  to  a  young  fellow  of  anything  going, 
and  because  Uncle  John  is  in  a  position  to  give  me  a  job 
and  a  good  start  when  I  have  graduated. " 

Chilton  will  never  make  an  engineer  no  matter  how  hard 
his  father  sets  his  jaw  and  no  matter  how  good  a  job  his 
Uncle  John  has  waiting  for  him,  because  he  hasn't  a  math- 
ematical brain,  he  doesn't  like  engineering,  and  he  has  not 
learned  to  do  anything  well  which  he  doesn't  like. 

This  leads  me  to  say  that  there  is  probably  no  more 
foolish  practice  than  to  choose  a  business  or  a  profession 
purely  because  in  itself  it  seems  to  offer  peculiar  oppor- 
tunities or  attractions.  All  through  the  summer  following 
their  graduation  from  high  school,  boys  come  to  see  me  or 
write  to  me  concerning  their  entrance  to  college. 

"What  do  you  think  is  a  good  course  for  a  fellow  to  take 
up?"  they  ask  me,  with  the  idea  in  mind  that  there  must 
be  some  work  par  excellence  in  itself,  regardless  of  the  indi- 
vidual or  of  his  attitude  toward  his  work.  They  do  not  see 
that  it  is  the  man  and  not  the  profession  that  brings  about 
success.  They  argue  that  because  electricity  is  the  coming 
motive  power,  electrical  engineering  is  really  the  only 
course  to  pursue  if  they  are  going  to  college,  or  possibly 
that  because  chemistry  has  played  such  a  wonderful  part 
in  the  war  and  will  play  an  even  more  wonderful  part  in  the 
reconstruction  which  follows  the  war,  chemistry  is  an  un- 
usually good    field    for  a  boy  to  enter.      They  are,  no 


160  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

doubt,  correct  in  supposing  that  chemistry  and  electricity 
will  be  more  generally  than  ever  put  to  practical  use  in  the 
coming  years,  but  no  course  is  in  itself  a  good  course,  and 
no  line  of  work  offers  special  opportunities  unless  the 
men  who  pursue  them  show  special  fitness. 

There  was  a  letter  in  my  mail  only  a  few  days  ago  from 
a  young  fellow  just  graduated  from  high  school,  who,  with- 
out money,  was  considering  the  possibility  of  going  to 
college. 

"I  should  like  to  know,"  he  wrote,  "just  what  special 
inducements  your  University  will  offer  me  in  the  way  of  a 
chance  to  earn  my  living.  I  want  to  go  to  college,  and  I 
am  intending  to  choose  the  college  which  will  make  me  the 
most  attractive  offer  and  the  course  which  suggests  the 
greatest  future."  He  mentioned  no  special  fitness,  no  tal- 
ents or  training  or  experience  which  should  give  him  pref- 
erence or  precedence  over  other  boys. 

I  replied  that  he  was  looking  at  the  matter  from  the 
wrong  angle.  The  college  welcomes  the  boy  who  has  most 
ability,  who  can  do  something  better  than  common,  who 
has  special  fitness  for  a  definite  job,  and  such  a  boy  can  get 
a  job  almost  anywhere  he  goes.  It  is  in  such  a  way  as  this 
young  fellow  was  looking  at  his  job  in  college  that  some 
men  regard  a  profession.  They  are  willing  to  sell  them- 
selves to  the  profession  which  bids  the  highest,  not  realiz- 
ing that  it  is  their  own  personal  qualities  and  interest 
which  determine  whether  or  not  the  job  is  worth  while. 
I  am  convinced  that  many  of  the  failures  which  young 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  161 

fellows  meet  in  all  lines  of  business  and  especially  in  techni- 
cal courses  in  college  come  largely  from  the  fact  that  men 
have  gone  into  them  not  because  of  any  special  fitness  or 
of  any  special  interest  in  the  work  or  liking  for  it,  but  be- 
cause they  felt  that  the  particular  business  or  profession 
which  they  were  taking  up  offered  an  easy  and  sure  ap- 
proach to  success. 

In  choosing  a  profession  one  ought  to  be  willing  to  reach 
success  slowly  and  by  reasonable  stages. 

Cowan  did  well  in  high  school  and  college.  He  was  not 
afraid  of  work,  he  showed  enthusiasm,  and  he  was  de- 
pendable. His  character  was  above  reproach,  and  his  per- 
sonality was  unusually  attractive.  I  used  often  to  marvel 
at  the  ease  with  which  he  met  people,  the  rapidity  with 
which  he  made  friends,  and  the  facility  with  which  he  dis- 
patched business;  but  yet  he  did  not  get  on.  He  tried  life 
insurance  but  gave  it  up  at  the  end  of  a  few  months;  he 
took  up  the  real  estate  business;  he  was  a  traveling  sales- 
man for  a  tractor  company;  he  went  in  with  a  reputable 
manufacturing  concern;  but  he  did  not  stick  long.  He 
drifted  from  one  thing  to  another,  and  at  the  end  of  ten 
years  he  had  got  nowhere;  yet  everyone  admitted  his 
abihty. 

The  real  cause  of  his  failure  was  that  Cowan  wanted 
to  succeed  at  a  bound;  he  was  looking  for  something  that 
would  make  him  rich  or  famous  or  independent  in  a  short 
time.  He  was  not  willing  to  go  through  the  long  period 
of  servitude  and  drudgery  that  practically  every  success- 


162  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

ful  or  professional  or  business  man  has  found  necessary 
before  he  reached  the  goal  of  his  ambitions.  So  he  rushed 
from  one  rainbow  end  to  another  in  a  vain  endeavor  to 
find  the  pot  of  gold  without  digging  for  it. 

Two  friends  of  mine,  a  steady,  successful,  middle-aged 
couple,  were  stopping  for  a  time  at  a  high-priced  hotel  in 
the  Allegheny  mountains. 

"Isn't  it  strange,"  Mrs.  Granger  said  to  her  husband, 
"how  few  young  people  there  are  here.  Almost  everyone 
is  middle-aged  or  past  it." 

"That's  easy,"  her  husband  responded.  "A  man  has  to 
be  forty-five  before  he  has  made  enough  money  to  afford 
to  come  here." 

It  is  a  hard  lesson  for  a  boy  to  learn  that  in  any  pro- 
fession or  business  that  is  worth  while  success  comes 
slowly.  Persistence  is  necessary;  faithfulness,  courage 
and  willingness  to  wait  for  results.  It  is  the  hardest,  after 
all,  for  a  boy  to  learn  to  wait,  for  him  to  realize  that  the 
profession  or  business  that  promises  immediate  success  is 
frequently,  like  the  skilfully  gilded  brick,  a  thing  to  be 
wary  of. 

One  should  not  choose  a  profession  in  which  he  has  no 
special  interest  and  for  the  work  of  which  he  has 
no  liking.  A  month  or  two  ago  a  high  school  senior 
from  a  neighboring  state  brought  to  me  a  letter  of  in- 
troduction from  a  former  student  of  mine  with  the  re- 
quest that  I  should  give  the  boy  advice  as  to  the  choice  of 
his  profession.    The  young  fellow  seemed  normal  in  every 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  163 

way.  His  course  in  high  school  had  been  well  balanced 
and  was  made  up  of  mathematics,  and  language,  and  sci- 
ence varied  enough  to  test  his  ability.  He  had  done  one 
thing  about  as  well  as  another.  It  did  seem,  however, 
that  he  had  rather  unusual  talents  in  music.  The  his- 
tory of  his  family  on  both  his  father's  and  mother's  side 
showed  musical  appreciation  and  technical  skill.  He  was 
himself  a  more  than  ordinarily  skilful  pianist.  It  was  my 
friend's  opinion  that  the  boy  ought  to  study  music  and 
prepare  himself  to  become  a  professional  musician  rather 
than  to  take  scientific  or  technical  work.  I  talked  with 
him  for  some  time  to  get  his  reactions. 

"What  do  you  want  to  do?"  I  finally  asked  him. 

"I'd  rather  be  a  chemical  engineer  than  anything  else 
in  the  world,"  was  his  reply.  "I'd  be  willing  to  work  my 
head  off,  if  I  could  get  a  chance  to  study  chemistry." 

His  point  of  view  is  the  only  safe  guide  to  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  choosing  a  profession.  Interest,  desire, 
the  willingness  to  work  at  a  thing  because  one  likes  it — that 
is  the  test  which  every  boy  should  apply  to  himself  when 
he  is  making  the  choice  of  the  work  which  he  is  to  take  up 
for  life.  Every  business,  every  profession  is  full  of  men 
who  are  working  beaiuse  they  have  to  do  so  and  not  be- 
cause they  want  to  do  so,  who  drag  themselves  to  their 
tasks  with  lagging  steps  and  unenthusiastic  spirits.  The 
most  favored  positions  in  life  are  full  of  difficulties.  Every 
position  and  every  profession  has  its  trials  and  its  hard 
problems  that  will  test  the  courage  and  try  the  temper  of 


164  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

the  best  of  men.  Unless  one  likes  his  work,  unless  he  can 
show  interest  and  enthusiasm  in  it,  his  lot  is  a  sad  one. 
One  should  choose  for  his  life  work  something  in  which  he 
will  find  pleasure,  he  should  go  to  it  every  morning  with 
delight  and  should  leave  it  with  something  like  regret. 
Otherwise  there  will  be  for  him  constant  grumbling,  un- 
rest and  discontent. 

It  is  easy  to  find  illustrations  of  the  fact  that  interest 
and  enthusiasm  will  work  wonders.  Not  many  years  ago 
a  young  fellow  from  a  country  town  in  the  middle  west 
applied  for  admission  to  one  of  our  middle  west  educa- 
tional institutions.  He  had  had  no  high  school  training, 
and  the  admission  requirements  of  the  institution  were 
severe.  He  was  past  twenty-one  years  of  age,  however, 
so  that  he  was  admitted  on  trial  as  a  special  student  and 
allowed  to  attempt  to  carry  the  regular  work  of  the  fresh- 
man year  of  the  course  in  which  he  was  interested.  It 
was  his  greatest  pleasure  to  have  a  chance  to  study  the 
subjects  which  he  liked,  and  he  carried  that  same  inter- 
est and  enthusiasm  to  all  other  subjects  which  he  at- 
tempted or  which  he  was  required  to  take.  During  his 
leisure  hours  he  devoted  himself  to  the  high  school  work 
which  he  had  missed  as  a  boy,  passed  it  off  by  examin- 
ation, and  at  the  end  of  four  years  and  a  half  he  gradu- 
ated as  an  honor  student. 

No  one  ever  thought  that  he  had  a  brilliant  mind; 
he  had  interest  and  he  was  willing  to  work.  If  such  a 
man   as   he    without    adequate    preparation,    and    with 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  165 

only  average  brains,  could  through  desire  and  interest 
mainly,  accomplish  such  gratifying  results,  what  could 
a  thoroughly  well-prepared  man  not  do?  And  what  is 
true  of  one  sort  of  work  is  true  of  another.  It  is  the 
man  who  is  working  because  he  enjoys  it  who  throws 
his  whole  soul  into  what  he  is  doing  and  who  can  not 
be  excelled  or  defeated.  It  is  the  men  who  have  no 
enthusiasms,  and  who  can't  get  down  to  work,  who  are 
always  in  doubt  as  to  whether  or  not  they  have  chosen 
correctly,  and  who  seldom  succeed.  The  young  fellow  who 
knows  what  he  wants  to  do  and  is  willing  and  eager  to 
do  whatever  is  necessary  to  accomplish  his  purposes  is 
a  long  way  toward  success.  The  man  who  doesn't  know 
his  own  mind,  who  is  waiting  for  someone  to  pick  out 
for  him  a  good  job,  or  to  set  him  up  in  a  successful  busi- 
ness, has  little  chance  of  getting  anywhere. 

Men  say  sometimes  that  the  thing  they  would  like 
most  to  do  requires  so  much  preparation  before  they  are 
ready  to  go  on  with  it,  that  they  can  not  afford  the  time 
or  the  money  required  to  fit  them  to  begin.  They  would 
like  to  be  lawyers  or  physicians  or  preachers  or  architects 
or  whatever  it  may  be,  but  to  be  a  well-prepared  phy- 
sician requires  seven  or  eight  years  of  study  and  prepara- 
tion not  to  speak  of  the  sum  of  money  to  be  expended, 
and  they  feel  that  they  will  be  half  through  life  before 
they  are  ready  to  take  up  its  duties.  Men  excuse  them- 
selves for  not  finishing  a  college  course  which  they  have 
begun,  on  the  ground  that  they  have  found  a  good  open- 


166  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

ing  or  have  been  offered  an  unusually  attractive  position 
and  they  fear  that  if  they  wait  to  complete  their  education 
all  the  good  jobs  will  be  gone.  Opportunity  knocks 
but  once,  they  say,  and  they  are  convinced  that  he  is 
now  at  their  door. 

Over  against  these  facts,  however,  are  others.  No  one 
has  ever  been  heard  to  regret,  no  matter  what  sort  of 
business  or  profession  he  is  in,  that  his  preparation  was 
too  carefully  made,  that  he  put  in  too  much  time  or  too 
much  money  on  his  preluninary  education,  or  did  too  much 
studying  before  he  began.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
illustrations  without  number  of  men  who  bemoan  the 
fact  all  their  lives  that  they  gave  too  little  time  to  prep- 
aration and  that  they  made  their  greatest  mistake  in 
not  finishing  their  education.  Illustrations  innumerable 
can  be  found,  also,  of  men  who  even  in  middle  life  got 
into  the  professions  for  which  a  delayed  preparation 
had  been  made  and  who  have  more  than  made  good. 

The  boy  or  the  young  man,  therefore,  who  hesitates 
about  taldng  up  the  profession  or  the  business  which 
he  likes  best  because  of  the  time  or  the  money  neces- 
sary to  prepare  for  it,  or  the  man  who  rushes  into  work 
ill  prepared  because  he  is  afraid  all  the  good  jobs  will 
be  gone  if  he  waits,  is  making  a  serious  mistake.  It  is 
far  better  to  take  up  a  profession  we  like  even  late  in 
life  than  it  is  to  drag  out  a  dull  existence  in  doing  the 
things  mechanically  which  fail  to  bring  out  our  best  efforts. 
It  is  better  to  finish  one's  preparations  as  thoroughly 


CHOOSING  A  PROFESSION  167 

as  possible  and  trust  to  the  fact  that  there  are  always 
good  jobs  for  the  man  who  is  fitted  to  hold  them. 

Fitness,  interest,  enthusiasm,  willingness  to  work, 
thorough  preparation — these  are  the  vital  things  to  be 
considered  by  any  young  fellow  in  the  choice  of  a  profes- 
sion. 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE 

I  am  convinced  that  far  too  many  boys  go  to  college. 
It  is  not  that  I  undervalue  the  worth  of  a  college  educa- 
tion— far  from  it — but  too  many  fellows  go  who  have 
no  appreciation  of  what  a  college  education  means,  no 
special  interest,  no  impelling  motive,  no  desire  for  what 
college  gives.  When  I  entered  college,  it  was  a  great 
event  in  our  country  community  for  a  boy  to  break  away 
from  his  environment  and  go  off  to  a  higher  institution 
of  learning;  the  neighbors  all  turned  out  to  see  me  off. 
Now  everybody  goes;  it  is  as  common  a  thing  for  a  boy 
to  go  to  college  as  it  is  for  him  to  take  a  summer  vacation. 
I  often  ask  the  young  fellows  in  our  freshman  class  who 
come  in  to  see  me  why  they  are  in  college,  but  I  seldom 
get  a  very  thoughtful  or  a  very  specific  answer. 

I  asked  Parker  the  other  day.  He  is  a  boy  of  good 
brains  and  attractive  physique.  He  has  plenty  of  money, 
and  every  chance  to  do  well,  but  his  work  is  ragged  and 
commonplace,  he  gets  no  pleasure  out  of  books,  he  has 
no  enthusiasm  for  study;  he  is  quite  as  likely  to  fail  as 
to  pass  when  the  test  of  final  examinations  comes. 

"It  wasn't  because  I  wanted  to  come,"  was  his  reply. 
"My  brother  George  finished  here  two  years  ago,  and 
he  wanted  me  to  come.  Father  would  have  been  disap- 
pointed if  I  had  not  done  so,  so  what  was  I  to  do?" 

168 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  169 

He  showed  about  as  much  animation  and  pleasure 
as  a  young  fellow  might  do  who  was  taking  a  dose  of 
cod  liver  oil  to  please  his  grandmother. 

Down  the  street  a  block  or  so  was  another  boy  to  whom 
his  college  course  is  a  source  of  constant  joy.  He  has  been 
an  orphan  for  many  years,  he  has  no  resources  but  those 
which  come  from  the  labor  of  his  own  hands.  Ever  since 
he  was  a  small  boy  he  had  looked  forward  to  being  in  col- 
lege as  one  of  the  hoped-for  but  nearly  impossible  things. 
It  was  to  him  like  a  dream  of  fairy-land  not  likely  to  come 
true. 

He  worked  his  way  through  high  school,  he  got  a  good 
job  the  following  summer,  he  won  a  scholarship  by  ex- 
amination, and  then  he  began  to  feel  that  possibly  his 
dream  might  be  realized.  He  is  in  college  now,  and  he 
finds  it  all  a  delight.  He  has  no  money  and  few  pleasures, 
but  he  is  full  of  enthusiasm,  he  laughs  at  the  sacrifices 
he  must  make,  he  counts  it  a  privilege  to  be  able  to  pursue 
the  subjects  which  he  enjoys,  and  he  knows  very  well 
why  he  came  to  college.  His  four  years  in  college  will 
be  full  of  hard  toil,  but  they  will  bring  him  constant  and 
keen  pleasure. 

Too  many  boys  go  to  college  for  the  same  reason  that 
scores  of  fellows  went  into  the  army  in  1917 — it  is  the 
easiest  thing  to  do;  it  is  the  thing  which  a  large  number 
of  his  friends  are  doing.  To  others  it  seems  more  attrac- 
tive, perhaps,  and  more  likely  to  result  in  a  hilariously 
good  time  than  going  to  work.     There  is  a  generally 


170  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

accepted  belief  extant,  also,  that  the  man  who  goes  to 
college  is  likely  in  some  way  to  have  an  easier  time  than 
the  fellow  who  does  not  do  so.  No  one  seems  to  ap- 
preciate the  fact  that  the  man  who  secures  an  edu- 
cation is  also  sure  to  fall  heir  to  pretty  heavy  responsi- 
bilities. 

Now  why  should  a  boy  go  to  college?  Not  to  any 
large  extent  because  other  fellows  are  doing  so,  though 
of  course,  custom  is  not  a  thing  to  be  wholly  ignored 
even  in  following  educational  practices;  not  so  much  as 
most  people  think  to  acquire  information  or  to  acquaint 
oneself  with  facts,  though  the  accumulation  of  facts  is 
a  necessary  detail  in  any  system  of  education.  More 
than  for  anything  else,  one  should  go  to  college  for  the 
symmetrical  training  of  the  mind,  for  the  learning  of 
self-control,  for  the  disciplining  of  all  the  faculties,  for 
the  development  of  ideals. 

I  studied  calculus  and  conic  sections  while  I  was  in 
college;  I  pored  over  Anglo  Saxon  texts,  and  spent  a 
considerable  time  in  the  chemical  laboratory  working 
out  experiments  and  developing  formulas.  Most  of 
these  things  I  have  forgotten,  and  few  if  any  of  them 
have  I  had  any  occasion  to  use  in  the  routine  busiiiess 
which  haa  engaged  my  attention  since  I  left  college.  I 
do  not  for  this  reason,  however,  in  any  way  underesti- 
mate the  permanent  value  of  these  subjects  to  me.  They 
developed  my  brain,  they  caused  me  to  think,  they  helped 
me  to  draw  conclusions  quickly  and  gave  me  a  broader 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  171 

and  clearer  outlook  on  life,  and  these  powers  have 
helped  me  every  day  of  my  life  since,  in  every  relation 
which  I  have  borne  to  my  fellow  men.  It  is  seldom  that 
I  have  needed  the  specific  information  which  I  derived 
from  these  subjects,  but  all  through  the  years  I  have 
depended  upon  the  training  which  I  thus  received.  It 
is  this  training  and  discipline  which  in  my  mind  is  the 
most  valuable  thing  the  college  gives. 

There  are  several  sorts  of  men  who  should  not  go  to 
college.  The  man  who  does  not  like  to  study,  who  finds 
no  real  pleasure  in  books,  to  whom  the  incidental  things 
of  college  are  the  main  consideration,  has  little  business 
in  college.  I  was  talking  to  Rogers  about  his  work  this 
quarter.  He  is  doing  poorly,  he  can  not  get  up  in  the 
morning,  he  finds  class  attendance  irksome,  and  books 
and  study  bore  him. 

"If  I  can  not  make  the  ball  team,"  he  confessed  to 
me,  "there  is  little  use  of  my  staying  in  college.  I'd  a  lot 
rather  hold  down  the  second  sack  than  be  elected  to  Phi 
Beta  Kappa." 

The  facts  are,  however,  that  there's  a  slim  chance  of  his 
attaining  either  distinction,  for  he  will  not  be  allowed  to 
play  ball  at  all  if  he  doesn't  carry  his  studies,  and  the 
likelihood  of  his  making  Phi  Beta  Kappa  is  about  as  re- 
mote as  the  establishment  of  an  aeroplane  route  to  Mars. 

"You'd  better  apply  for  admission  to  one  of  the  minor 
leagues,"  I  advised  him,  "college  is  no  place  for  you." 

There  are  those  who  look  upon  college  as  a  kind  of 


172  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

resting  place  between  youth  and  manhood  where  one  forms 
associations  only,  or  absorbs  a  few  facts  or  a  little  culture. 
They  do  not  for  a  moment  consider  it  a  place  where  a 
young  fellow  should  get  down  to  business  and  work  hard, 
but  rather  a  place  of  leisure,  or  recreation,  a  place  to 
dream  and  smoke,  and  sleep  late  in  the  morning,  and  talk 
nonsense  to  pretty  girls  while  one  is  waiting  for  the  real 
work  of  life  to  begin.  It  is  this  sort  of  man  who  yawns  or 
turns  up  his  nose  when  the  subject  of  scholarship  is  intro- 
duced. He  doesn't  want  to  get  high  grades,  not  he.  He 
is  going  to  have  to  go  to  work  quite  soon  enough,  he  de- 
clares, so  why  spoil  the  best  years  of  one's  life  by  digging. 
Peters  was  that  sort.  He  could  prove  by  statistics 
gathered  from  all  kinds  of,  to  him  at  least,  reliable  sources 
that  the  commonplace  man  in  his  studies  in  college  always 
develops  later  into  a  captain  of  finance  or  a  world  leader. 
He  spent  most  of  his  time  cultivating  an  effective  shot  at 
billiards  or  sitting  in  front  of  the  fire  smoking  cigarettes 
and  outlining  to  the  other  fellows  who  would  listen  to  him 
the  business  and  social  conquests  he  expected  to  make 
when  his  college  career  should  close.  Unfortunately  it 
closed  somewhat  sooner  than  he  anticipated,  for  the  fac- 
ulty took  another  view  of  things  than  that  held  by  Peters, 
and  dropped  him  at  the  end  of  his  sophomore  year  for 
poor  scholarship.  Peters  is  only  one  of  the  many  illustra- 
tions I  have  known  of  the  fact  that  there  isn't  much  place 
in  college  for  the  loafer,  or  for  the  man  who  is  trying  only 
to  pick  up  a  little  social  experience  or  to  acquire  a  little 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  173 

intellectual  polish  without  labor,  before  he  gets  into  the 
real  hustle  of  life. 

There  are  a  few  boys  undoubtedly  who  finish  high  school 
whose  mental  equipment  is  not  quite  adequate  to  the  work 
of  college,  who  are  not  natural  students,  who  are  better 
fitted  for  a  trade  than  for  a  profession,  and  who  would 
seldom  have  had  their  minds  turned  toward  a  college 
course  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  so  many  of  their  mates 
were  continuing  their  education  beyond  the  high  school. 
The  number  of  these  is  not  large,  possibly,  but  it  is  sufii- 
ciently  in  evidence  for  a  boy  seriously  to  ask  himself  the 
question,  "Am  I  mentally  fitted  to  take  up  a  college 
course?" 

A  good  many  boys  can  not  afford  to  go  to  college.  Some- 
times home  duties  are  arduous  and  can  not  be  shirked, 
and  though,  if  he  followed  his  own  personal  desires,  he 
would  go  on  with  his  education,  he  realizes  that  he  is 
under  obligation  to  make  the  sacrifice.  Sometimes  the 
boy  could  get  away,  but  there  is  no  money  available.  The 
old  theory  was  that  any  boy  who  had  the  desire  for  an 
education  could  always  meet  his  college  expenses  in  some 
way  through  manual  labor.  In  fact  there  are  many  other- 
wise sensible  people  still  who  imagine  that  the  self-sup- 
porting student  in  college  is  not  only  better  off  than  other 
boys  but  is  always  near  the  head  of  the  class.  I  have  even 
known  fathers  who  were  quite  able  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  their  sons  in  college  who  refused  to  do  so  because  they 
exaggerated  and  idealized  the  intellectual  advantages  of 


174  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

being  poor.  There  is  always  to  substantiate  their  theory, 
the  story  of  Webster  setting  off  to  Dartmouth  with  his 
one  pair  of  homespun  trousers — later  ruined  by  the  rain — 
and  a  bag  of  potatoes  for  his  subsistence.  They  do  not 
suspect  how  much  pain  and  suffering  he  would  have  been 
spared,  how  much  better  he  might  have  done,  had  he  been 
properly  clothed  and  decently  fed. 

The  real  facts  are  that  the  self-supporting  student  in 
college  misses  a  tremendous  lot  usually  of  what  one  should 
get  from  college,  and  in  a  good  many  instances  fails  en- 
tirely. 

"I  know  absolutely  nothing  of  what  real  college  life 
is,"  a  junior  said  to  me  only  a  few  days  ago.  "I've  earned 
my  own  living  ever  since  I  entered,  and  I've  had  my  nose 
on  the  grindstone  ever  since  I  struck  the  campus.  I  some- 
times wonder  if  it  pays." 

Such  a  student  picks  up  an  inadequate  living,  and  he 
sometimes  falls  down  on  his  final  examinations.  The  rea- 
son is  perfectly  evident.  The  college  course,  if  it  is  well 
carried,  requires  the  most  of  a  man's  time.  The  self- 
supporting  student  is  attempting  two  tasks  either  of  which 
have  ordinarily  been  considered  sufficient  to  occupy  a 
man's  whole  time  and  energy. 

There  is  also  extant  another  notion  to  the  effect  that  in 
a  college  town  it  is  easier  to  live  on  nothing  or  to  pick  up  a 
good  job  than  in  any  other  place.  Many  a  young  fellow 
gravitates  to  a  college  town  thinking  he  can  get  work  there 
more  readily  than  in  any  other  place.    Quite  the  contrary 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  175 

is  true.  The  average  college  town  is  the  most  expensive 
place  to  live  one  can  find,  and  the  fact  that  there  are  al- 
ways hundreds  of  young  fellows  hunting  for  something  to 
do  to  eke  out  an  inadequate  income,  makes  the  oppor- 
tunity for  lucrative  employment  quite  uncertain. 

There  are  men,  of  course,  in  every  college  who  earn  all 
their  living  and  who  do  well  in  their  studies,  but  their  num- 
ber is  small.  Such  men  usually  have  some  peculiar  talent, 
such  as  the  ability  to  play  a  musical  instrument  well, 
for  instance,  which  enables  them  to  earn  a  considerable 
amount  of  money  in  brief  periods  of  time.  I  have  spoken 
to  a  boy  since  I  began  to  write  this  article  who  is  earn- 
ing his  expenses  through  college,  and  he  tells  me  that 
during  the  past  week  he  has  earned  S39.00  by  playing  the 
piano  in  an  orchestra  for  four  evenings.  There  are  not 
many  like  him,  however. 

The  man  who  works  his  way  in  college  must  have 
concentration  and  a  quick,  alert  mind  which  will  enable 
him  to  get  his  lessons  in  a  short  time.  He  must  be  re- 
sourceful, and  let  his  head  help  his  hands  in  earning  his 
living.  He  must  be  physically  strong  and  robust,  for  often 
he  will  need  to  get  on  for  a  time  on  less  sleep  than  the  aver- 
age man,  or  his  sleeping  hours,  at  least,  will  be  interrupted 
or  irregular.  He  will  have  to  be  capable  of  sacrifice,  for 
the  man  without  money  can  have  few  of  the  social  pleas- 
ures which  fill  so  much  of  the  leisure  time  of  the  college 
man.  He  can  never  afford  to  be  an  athlete,  for  participa- 
tion in  athletics  will  take  up  all  his  leisure  time  and  leave 


176  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

him  no  opportunity  to  earn  his  hving.  He  should  not  be 
too  sensitive  or  given  to  despondent  spells,  for  his  work 
will  not  always  be  pleasant  or  to  his  liking.  He  will  often 
have  to  wait  on  his  inferiors  and  say  nothing  when  they 
treat  him  with  condescension.  I  should  never  advise  a 
boy  to  attempt  to  earn  his  living  in  college  if  he  does  not 
have  to  do  so;  often  I  think  it  is  better  to  delay  en- 
trance to  college  until  a  respectable  sum  has  been  saved, 
and  sometimes  I  am  sure  it  is  better  not  to  go  to  college  at 
all  than  to  make  the  sacrifices  and  to  do  the  worse  than 
commonplace  work  which  many  self-supporting  students 
find  it  impossible  to  avoid.  I  should  rather  enter  college 
at  twenty-two  and  do  good  work  than  to  graduate  at  the 
same  age  and  leave  behind  me  a  record  that  was  not  to 
my  credit. 

The  boy  who  is  always  looking  for  practical  things,  who 
does  not  want  to  study  anything  that  fails  to  reveal  at 
once  its  practical  application  or  its  immediate  availability 
as  a  money  getter,  is  better  off  usually  out  of  college  than 
in.  I  see  such  men  every  day.  They  are  never  able  to 
"see  any  use"  in  Latin,  or  philosophy,  or  literature;  they 
are  constantly  objecting  because  certain  courses  in  which 
they  are  registered  are  not  what  they  thought  they  would 
be;  they  are  not  getting  anything  out  of  them,  they  say, 
quite  likely  because  they  are  putting  less  into  them  them- 
selves. Such  men  see  very  little  in  a  college  course,  and 
for  them  in  fact  there  probably  is  little,  for  though  the 
college  man  is  very  likely  to   earn  money  more  readily 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  177 

because  of  his  college  training  than  other  men,  the  fellow 
who  goes  to  college  solely  because  he  thinks  it  will  prove 
the  readiest  means  to  an  easy  and  profitable  job,  might 
better  stay  at  home. 

The  choice  of  a  college  is  a  subject  which  should  be 
given  some  attention.  The  question  is  one  often  decided 
by  sentiment,  by  prejudice,  from  practical  considerations 
and  from  a  thousand  and  one  things  sometimes  trifling  in 
themselves.  The  boy  who  goes  to  college  in  his  home  town 
is  usually  making  a  mistake.  The  only  advantage  such  a 
young  fellow  derives  is  a  financial  one.  It  is  generally 
cheaper  to  live  at  home  than  away  from  home,  and,  when 
the  matter  of  finances  is  a  vital  one,  it  is  better  for  a  boy 
to  go  to  college  in  his  home  town  than  not  to  go  at  all. 
I  have  never,  except  for  financial  reasons,  advised  any 
parents  to  move  to  a  college  town  in  order  that  they  might 
look  after  and  care  for  their  sons  while  they  were  under- 
graduates in  college,  and  I  do  not  now  recall  the  names  of 
any  sons  who  were  strengthened  by  having  their  parents 
with  them  during  the  college  course. 

The  boy  living  at  home  is  usually  less  independent,  less 
aggressive,  possesses  less  initiative  than  the  one  who  is 
thrown  out  upon  his  own  resources  to  fight  his  own  bat- 
tles, to  meet  his  own  temptations,  and  to  settle  his  own 
difficulties.  The  college  practically  always  throws  about 
him  sufficient  restraint  to  keep  him  from  going  on  the 
rocks,  and  yet  leaves  him  free  enough  to  develop  in- 
dependence.   If  he  is  at  home,  his  father,  or  especially  his 


178  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

mother,  undertakes  to  decide  for  him  in  most  critical  emer- 
gencies and,  though  the  judgment  of  the  older  person  is 
likely  to  be  more  dependable  than  that  of  the  younger, 
there  is  no  training  for  the  boy  in  depending  upon  his 
elders'  judgment. 

The  boy  from  the  west  will  often  gain  an  advantage  by 
going  to  an  eastern  institution  for  his  education.  Not  that 
he  will  be  better  taught  there,  or  live  in  a  more  refined  or  a 
rarer  intellectual  atmosphere,  but  because  he  will  meet 
different  sorts  of  people,  he  will  need  to  adjust  him- 
self to  quite  different  conditions  from  those  to  which  he 
has  been  used,  and  he  will  get  a  broader  outlook  upon  Ufe. 
Such  an  experience  will  not  be  at  all  likely  to  make  him 
dissatisfied  with  his  own  particular  part  of  the  country, 
but  on  the  contrary  will  cause  him  to  value  it  more  highly. 
When  I  go  to  the  mountains  I  always  come  back  to  the 
prairies  with  a  sense  of  joy  and  satisfaction. 

For  this  reason  the  New  Englander  or  the  Southerner 
would  often  be  immeasurably  benefited  by  taking  his 
college  training  in  the  west.  It  would  modify  his  provin- 
cialism, it  would  disabuse  his  mind  of  the  idea  that  the 
most  of  the  United  States  lies  east  of  the  Hudson  river 
or  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  it  would  humanize 
him  and  teach  him  democracy,  and,  best  of  all,  if  he  chooses 
his  college  wisely,  it  would  give  him  as  excellent  a  training 
as  he  could  get  anywhere  else  in  the  country,  and  often  at 
considerably  less  expense. 

Each  college  has  its  own  traditions,  its  own  atmosphere, 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  179 

its  own  ideals  and  character.  It  is  well  worth  while  look- 
ing into  these  things  in  choosing  a  college.  It  is  almost  as 
necessary  to  avoid  incompatibility  of  tastes  in  choosing 
a  college  as  it  is  in  choosing  a  wife.  There  is  the  conserva- 
tive college  and  the  liberal;  the  college  in  a  country 
town  and  the  country  town  about  a  college;  there  is  the 
college  in  a  city  and  the  college  near  one.  Whether  one 
likes  one  sort  of  situation  or  another  depends  very  much 
upon  the  individual  himself. 

The  subject  of  the  large  institution  versus  the  small  one 
has  been  much  discussed,  I  have  been  a  student  in  a 
large  institution  where  I  knew  nobody  and  where  nobody 
had  the  slightest  curiosity  or  desire  to  know  me;  I  have 
been  a  teacher  in  a  small  institution  which  grew  during 
my  term  of  service  to  one  of  the  largest  universities  in  the 
country.    Each  type  of  college  has  its  own  advantages. 

The  main  argument  in  support  of  the  small  college  as 
opposed  to  the  big  university  is  about  the  same  as  that 
offered  in  defense  of  the  country  town  as  contrasted  with 
the  city.  The  small  college  is  more  democratic,  perhaps. 
SiAidents  in  it  come  more  closely  into  touch  with  the  older 
members  of  the  faculty  and  with  each  other.  The  number 
of  extra-curriculum  activities  does  not  vary  materially 
from  those  in  the  larger  institution,  and,  since  the  enroll- 
ment of  students  is  small,  the  competition  for  student 
honors  is  very  much  less  keen.  While  in  a  big  institution 
there  might  easily  be  one  thousand  students  in  the  senior 
or  junior  class,  in  the  small  college  there  would  not  be  one 


180  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

tenth  as  many.  There  is  more  chance,  therefore,  in  the 
small  college  for  the  shy,  unaggressive,  commonplace  man 
to  gain  prominence  than  in  the  larger  one.  There  is,  per- 
haps, more  general  comradeship,  brotherly  feeling,  the  life 
is  more  like  home  life,  though  the  number  of  men  whom 
one  can  Imow  in  a  small  college  is  not  greater  if  so  great  as 
is  possible  in  a  big  university  outside  of  a  great  city. 

The  larger  institution  makes  the  stronger  appeal  to  the 
man  with  initiative  because  it  offers  to  him  greater  pos- 
sibilities. To  be  manager  or  editor  of  a  great  college 
daily,  to  be  captain  of  an  athletic  team  whose  vic- 
tories are  heralded  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco,  to 
be  president  of  a  student  organization  in  which  there  are 
five  thousand  votes  to  be  considered,  makes  a  strong  ap- 
peal to  the  ambitious  student.  The  opportunity,  too,  to 
touch  elbows  with  men  from  all  over  the  world,  such  men 
as  one  finds  in  a  big  university,  is  no  small  matter.  The 
student  in  any  large  American  university  has  a  chance  to 
know  men  from  almost  every  civilized  country  in  the 
world.  The  variety  of  interests,  also,  in  the  big  institution 
is  worth  considering.  I  count  it  as  one  of  the  most  valuable 
experiences  of  my  college  course,  that  though  I  was  pri- 
marily interested  in  languages  and  literatm-e  while  I  was 
an  undergraduate,  yet  I  had  daily  associations  with  en- 
gineers and  chemists,  with  prep-medics  and  mathemati- 
cians, and  that,  without  consciously  doing  so,  I  acquired  a 
considerable  body  of  information  and  grew  interested  in 
a  thousand  incidental  things  through  this  association.    One 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  181 

is  more  alone  in  a  big  institution,  one  has  more  freedom, 
one  must  more  often  fight  single-handed  one's  own  battles. 
There  is  more  chance  of  being  lost  in  the  crowd  and  more 
honor  if  one  rises  above  it. 

One  would  suppose,  if  he  did  not  know  otherwise,  that 
a  freshman  in  college  barring  the  matter  of  a  few  months 
difference  in  age,  is  quite  similar  to  a  senior  in  high  school, 
but  whoever  assumed  such  a  premise  would  be  far  from 
the  truth.  One  can  always  tell  a  freshman  at  college,  just 
as,  with  few  exceptions,  one  can  tell  an  American  college 
man  when  he  sees  him  whether  in  Duluth  or  Singa- 
pore. The  freshman  may  be  as  self-possessed  as  possible; 
he  may  dress  as  he  chooses;  he  may  ask  no  foolish  questions 
or  show  no  lack  of  familiarity  with  the  college  customs;  but 
he  is  a  marked  man  the  moment  he  sets  foot  on  the  campus. 
Whether  he  comes  from  South  Hadley,  Massachusetts,  or 
a  country  town  in  Kansas  with  one  general  store  and  a 
post  oJ3ice,  it  makes  little  difference,  he  can  not  conceal 
the  fact  that  he  is  a  newcomer  beginning  his  experi- 
ence in  college.  He  is  like  the  American  in  Paris,  or  Rot- 
terdam, who  thinks  that  if  he  does  not  speak  no  one  will 
know  him  for  a  foreigner,  but  who  is  spotted  a  block  away 
by  every  small  boy,  and  fakir,  on  the  street. 

No  one  knows  how  he  tells  a  freshman — it  is  probably 
a  matter  of  intuition.  But  the  freshman  learns  rapidly 
to  adapt  himself  to  the  new  situation;  he  picks  up  at  once 
the  ways  of  the  campus;  by  Thanksgiving  he'  seems  like 
an  old  settler,  and  by  the  end  of  the  year  he  is  ready  to 


182  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

meet  incoming  freshmen  with  unerring  recognition  and 
condescension.  Sometimes  he  adapts  himself  too  incom- 
pletely to  his  new  environment.  It  is  as  much  a  fault  to 
cling  rigidly  to  one's  home  manners  and  habits  and  dress 
as  it  is  to  throw  these  to  the  winds  and  adopt  the  ex- 
tremes of  college  customs  and  fads.  In  the  unimportant 
things  of  college  hfe  it  is  well  for  the  freshman  to  keep  his 
eyes  open  and  to  "do  as  the  Romans  do";  it  is  not  wise 
for  him,  however,  on  his  return  home  at  Thanksgiving  to 
attempt  to  reproduce  and  to  establish  the  customs  of 
Rome  in  his  home  community. 

The  differences  between  high  school  and  college  are 
marked.  The  methods  of  work  and  the  ways  of  living  are 
quite  different  from  those  in  high  school — quite  different 
in  fact,  from  what  the  boy  thinks  they  are.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  a  high  school  boy's  idea  of  college  life  is  an 
erroneous  one.  What  he  knows  of  college  he  has  most 
frequently  gained  from  the  exaggerated  accounts  of  stu- 
dent escapades  which  he  has  seen  in  the  newspapers,  or 
from  the  stories  which  he  has  heard  related  by  his  big 
brother  or  a  local  athlete  who  has  returned  home  from  the 
scenes  of  his  scholastic  triumphs.  Such  tales  are  usually 
unhampered  by  facts,  and  concern  themselves  more  with 
the  unusual  and  the  unimportant  things  of  college  than 
with  its  real  work.  If  he  has  visited  college  at  all  it  has 
more  than  likely  been  at  the  time  of  an  important  athletic 
contest,  or  of  an  interscholastic  meet,  when  nobody  works, 
or  talks  of  work,  and  when  the  main  thing  under  consider- 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  183 

ation  is  the  athletic  victory,  and  perhaps  the  celebration 
which  follows.  As  he  saw  college  then,  it  was  a  collection 
of  carefree  young  fellows  with  little  to  do  but  to  enjoy 
themselves,  and  perhaps  occasionally,  if  nothing  more  im- 
portant prevented,  to  attend  a  few  lectures.  In  point  of 
fact  college  life  is  a  strenuous  life,  where  every  man  should 
be  about  his  own  business  seriously  and  continuously.  If 
one  is  to  get  on  well  in  college,  or  in  life  for  that  matter, 
the  sooner  one  recognizes  this  fact  and  adapts  himself  to 
the  situation  the  better.  Failure  in  college  comes  from 
a  failure  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  aims  of  the  college 
are  different  from  those  of  the  high  school,  that  the 
amount  of  work  required  is  greater,  and  that  the  methods 
of  doing  it  must,  also,  be  different.  A  man  must  adjust 
himself  to  these  changed  conditions  if  he  would  get  on. 

The  high  school  boy  has  seldom  worked  independently. 
He  knew  that  if  his  work  were  not  done  when  it  should 
be,  his  teacher  would  remind  him  of  the  fact.  When  he 
was  in  difficulty  there  was  some  one  to  get  him  out.  What- 
ever he  did,  or  thought,  was  somewhat  under  the  super- 
vision of  someone  older  or  more  experienced  than  him- 
self. He  judged  of  his  success,  or  his  progress,  by  what 
these  people  said  of  him  or  to  him.  In  college  it  is  different. 
Everyone  must  look  after  himself;  much  of  his  training 
consists  in  his  doing  so.  If  he  doesn't  hustle,  no  one  is 
likely  at  once  to  call  his  attention  to  the  fact. 

The  problem  of  living  has  not  materially  concerned  a 
freshman  before  he  comes  to  college.     He  has  lived  at 


184  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

home,  and  his  comings  and  goings  have  been  under  the 
direction  of  the  older  members  of  the  household.  Most 
of  his  wants  have  been  provided  for  without  much  thought 
or  attention  on  his  part.  Mother  has  darned  his  stockings 
and  picked  out  his  neckties,  and  father  has  paid  the  bills. 
This  matter  of  paying  the  bills  is  not  to  be  ignored.  The 
college  man  will  get  on  more  happily,  he  will  more  readily 
learn  business  methods,  and  he  will  live  comfortably  on 
a  smaller  amount  if  he  has  a  stipulated  monthly  allow- 
ance. It  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  Uve  com- 
fortably, and  it  ought  not  to  be  so  much  as  to  necessitate 
wasting  his  time  in  order  to  spend  it.  The  most  discon- 
tented students  about  college  and  those  who  give  college 
officers  most  concern  are  the  students  who  have  too  little 
money  to  spend  and  those  who  have  too  much. 

The  habits  of  the  boy  going  to  college  are  as  much  the 
result  of  the  conventions  and  customs  of  the  community 
in  which  he  has  been  brought  up  as  of  his  own  tendencies 
or  inclinations.  If  he  learned  to  dance  it  was  because  all 
the  fellows  did,  if  he  went  to  church  regularly,  that  was 
no  necessary  indication  that  he  was  reUgiously  inclined; 
it  was  simply  the  custom.  When  he  needed  anything  he 
asked  for  it  without  knowing  much  as  to  what  it  cost  or 
where  it  came  from.  His  comings  and  goings  were  some- 
what supervised. 

At  college  when  his  study  program  is  decided  upon,  the 
disposal  of  his  time  is  largely  in  his  own  hands.  He  may 
study  one  thing  or  another,  or  he  need  not  study  at  all. 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  185 

He  may  read  in  the  library,  or  walk  down  town,  or  watch 
the  team  practicing  on  the  athletic  field;  there  is  no  one  to 
call  him  to  account.  If  he  attends  regularly  upon  classes, 
and  shows  a  reasonable  intelligence  regarding  his  studies, 
he  may  employ  his  time  as  he  pleases.  He  may  choose 
his  own  companions,  and  act  with  absolute  independ- 
ence. There  is  a  delightful  freedom  in  all  this  which 
is  sometimes  deceiving.  He  may  assume  that  since  no 
one  calls  him  to  account  today  there  will  be  no  reckoning 
tomorrow,  but  in  this  he  is  mistaken,  for  he  is  in  reality 
being  looked  after  pretty  carefully.  His  time  is  his  own, 
but  it  is  his  own  to  use  wisely,  and  if  he  fails  in  this  regard, 
he  will  suffer  in  the  final  reckoning,  and  that  reckoning 
comes  all  too  soon. 

On  entering  college  every  freshman  will  have  some 
definite  problems  to  face  in  a  more  personal  way  than 
they  have  ever  before  been  presented  to  him.  In  most 
cases  he  has  previously  been  familiar  more  or  less  closely 
with  all  the  temptations  which  are  to  be  found  in  college, 
but  at  home  he  has  often  been  shielded  from  them — they 
have  been  more  a  name  than  a  reality  to  him.  Sooner  or 
later  every  man  must  meet  temptation  face  to  face  and 
say  yes  or  no  to  its  proposals.  To  many  a  young  fellow 
the  critical  time  comes  at  about  the  age  when  he  goes  to 
college.  For  this  the  college  is  in  no  way  responsible, 
though  many  conscientious  men  have  tried  to  hang  the 
blame  there. 

I  should  not  feel  that  I  was  quite  doing  my  duty  if  I  did 


186  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

not  say  a  word  about  the  temptations  peculiar  to  young 
men  at  the  age  when  they  enter  college,  and  which  in  col- 
lege, perhaps,  are  touched  up  with  peculiar  allurements 
and  attractions.  It  is  true  that  a  large  majority  of 
young  men  are  little  affected  by  these  temptations  and 
still  fewer  are  permanently  injured  by  them,  but  those 
who  fail  in  college  do  so  usually  not  from  inability  to  do  the 
work,  but  because  they  are  led  away  by  these  other  things. 

May  I  speak  in  a  more  personal  and  direct  way  to 
the  boy  entering  college?  First  of  all  there  is  the  habit 
of  loafing.  Before  you  leave  the  train  which  is  carrying 
you  to  your  college  town,  sometimes  unfortunately  even 
before  you  are  out  of  high  school,  you  will  have  made 
engagements  for  days  and  weeks  in  advance  which  will 
often  seriously  interfere  with  the  real  work  of  college. 
There  is  the  fraternity  rushing,  and  the  open  grate  fire, 
and  the  pipe,  and  the  vaudeville  show,  and  the  new- 
found friend,  and  the  moon  smiling  down  and  inviting 
you  out  to  stroll,  and  all  these  pleading  in  the  strongest 
terms  for  self-indulgence,  and  self-gratification.  There 
are  a  thousand  other  new  and  fascinating  things  which 
you  may  call  by  any  name  you  please,  but  which  after 
all  are  only  other  names  for  loafing.  If  you  get  into 
the  habit  of  dawdling  away  your  time,  you  can  conjure 
up  a  hundred  apparently  good  excuses  for  not  studying, 
and  for  not  going  to  class. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  main  reasons  why  it  all  seems  so 
attractive  and  so  safe  is  because  the  days  are  so  long, 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  187 

and  the  time  of  final  reckoning  so  far  ahead  and  youth 
is  so  optimistic.  I  seldom  call  a  man  for  procrastination 
and  neglect  of  duty  who  does  not  tell  me  that  it  had 
been  his  serious  intention  to  see  me  that  day  even  if 
I  had  not  called  him,  and  I  presume  he  is  often  telling 
the  truth.  I  seldom  talk  to  a  loafer  who  has  not  promised 
himself,  even  before  I  urge  him  to  get  down  to  serious 
work,  that  he  will  stop  loafing  at  once.  The  loafer  has 
a  sensitive  conscience. 

"I  was  coming  in  to  see  you  today  even  if  you  had 
not  called  me,"  Walsh  said  to  me  this  morning.  "I 
know  what  you're  going  to  say;  I'm  a  loafer." 

Loafing  is  a  habit  easily  learned  and  hard  to  break, 
and  it  ruins  more  college  careers  at  the  very  outset  than 
does  any  other  vice. 

Then  you  should  have  a  regular  time  for  going  to  work 
each  evening.  You  should  not  be  turned  from  the  habit 
by  alluring  invitations  to  get  into  card  games,  or  to  stand 
around  the  piano  and  develop  your  taste  for  poor  music, 
or  to  waste  the  evening  in  attendance  upon  a  low-class 
vaudeville  show,  or  a  racy  moving  picture  performance, 
or  even  to  sit  in  front  of  the  fire  and  talk  about  politics 
or  the  girls  with  your  room-mate.  When  the  time  comes 
for  study,  you  should  go  to  it  as  if  you  liked  it,  and  do 
this  six  days  in  the  week  and  three  or  four  hours  a  day. 
If  you  do  this  for  a  month  or  two  there  will  be  little  likeli- 
hood of  your  developing  into  a  chronic  loafer.  I  have 
said  all  of  this  knowing  that  every  healthy  young  fellow 


188  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

will  want  pleasure  and  relaxation  and  knowing  also  that 
he  ought  to  have  it.  But  the  day  furnishes  time  enough 
for  class  work  and  study  and  recreation  and  sleep  if 
the  twenty-four  hours  are  intelligently  utilized,  and 
there  is  plenty  of  healthful  recreation  for  the  body  and  the 
mind  if  one  will  look  for  it. 

The  temptation  to  waste  time  in  gambling  is  an  ever- 
present  danger.  There  is  a  fascination  in  risking  your 
judgment  in  a  bet  with  another  fellow  or  in  a  game  of 
chance,  which  many  a  young  man  finds  it  hard  to  resist. 
It  is  so  easy  to  argue  that  one  must  have  some  recreation, 
and,  that  if  the  time  spent  in  playing  games  of  chance 
is  not  intemperate  or  in  excess  of  what  one  can  afford, 
there  should  be  no  objection  to  the  practice  on  the  part 
of  any  sensible  people.  As  to  the  money  lost  or  won  (for 
some  one  usually  wins)  it  is  often  a  negligible  quantity, 
and  in  most  cases  not  more  perhaps  than  you  might 
spend  on  a  first  class  show  or  entertainment  of  any  sort. 

"What  is  the  harm  to  me?"  a  young  man  asked  me 
not  long  ago.  "I  can  afford  the  time  and  the  money 
it  costs  me.    Why  should  I  not  play  poker  for  money?" 

I  should  answer  that  it  is  a  dangerous  habit,  because 
it  almost  invariably  leads  to  excesses.  The  gambler 
learns  to  take  risks  which  he  can  not  afford,  to  waste 
time  that  should  be  given  to  something  else,  to  bet  and 
to  lose  money  which  was  not  intended  for  this  purpose, 
and  he  develops  at  once  a  reputation  for  unreliability. 
No  business  man,  even  if  he  himself  gambles,  cares  to  em- 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  189 

ploy  a  young  fellow  who  has,  or  has  had  the  habit,  simply 
because  he  knows  the  dangers  which  surround  it.  I  have 
known  few  men  who  began  the  habit  in  college  who  found 
it  easy  to  break,  and  I  have  known  none  who,  even  though 
he  played  for  small  stakes  and  won  or  lost  very  little 
money,  was  not  injured  by  it.  If  the  habit  is  nothing 
more,  it  is  a  time  waster  and  leads  into  associations  which 
it  were  usually  better  not  to  have  formed. 

As  to  drinking,  perhaps,  now  that  prohibition  has 
become  nation  wide,  we  shall  have  little  or  none  of  that 
in  college.  Many  fellows  say  to  me  that  they  learned 
to  drink  at  home  with  their  fathers  and  mothers  about 
the  dinner  table.  If  it  must  be  done,  I  know  of  no  better 
place  to  do  it.  The  drinking  habit  as  I  have  seen  it  prac- 
ticed in  a  college  community  has  never  been  a  help  nor 
an  advantage  to  any  student,  and  it  has  usually  been 
a  distinct  injury.  The  only  excuse  for  it  is  that  it  is 
supposed  to  encourage  sociability  and  to  promote  good 
fellowship;  but  the  sort  of  good  fellowship  which  it  en- 
courages is  not  of  very  high  order.  The  men  and  women 
whom  you  are  likely  to  meet  at  drinking  places  are  not 
the  kind  that  a  college  student  will  be  benefited  by  know- 
ing, and  the  time  spent  in  their  society  is  not  usually  spent 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  him  a  better  citizen.  It  is  a  fact, 
also,  that  practically  all  the  young  fellows  I  have  known 
who  speak  of  the  harmlessness  of  "taking  a  glass  of  beer 
occasionally"  at  one  time  or  another  take  more  than  they 
can  carry  and  are  the  worse  for  it.    The  safest  plan  if  you 


190  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

are  going  to  college  with  the  idea  of  doing  honest,  satis- 
factory work  is  to  leave  the  drinking  of  intoxicating  li- 
quors to  those  who  have  no  real  interest  in  the  develop- 
ment of  their  moral  and  intellectual  powers,  for  the  drink- 
ing habit  will  invaribly  play  havoc  with  your  college  work, 
not  to  speak  of  your  morals. 

Smoking,  too,  although  it  can  scarcely  be  called  an 
immoral  habit,  has  upon  nervous  and  growing  young 
fellows  a  bad  effect.  It  is  likely  to  develop  restlessness 
and  indigestion  with  the  result  that  your  power  of  con- 
centration is  weakened,  your  brain  dulled,  and  the  likeli- 
hood of  your  doing  good  work  very  much  lessened.  The 
habit  of  using  tobacco  is  in  these  days  so  common 
among  young  men  that  it  seems  almost  a  waste  of 
time  to  speak  against  it.  I  have,  however,  seen  too 
many  nervous  systems  weakened  by  its  use,  and 
the  work  of  too  many  students  injured  irreparably, 
not  to  utter  a  word  of  warning  against  it.  Though 
the  number  of  young  fellows  in  college  who  smoke  is 
regrettably  large,  you  will  gain  nothing  either  in  prestige 
or  dignity  by  doing  so.  The  ability  to  hold  a  pipe  between 
the  teeth  or  to  puff  at  a  cigarette  does  not  make  you 
more  of  a  man  even  in  a  college  community,  and  the  fact 
that  you  do  not  smoke  brings  you  into  no  discredit.  No 
one  need  to  say  that  he  was  forced  into  smoking  in  col- 
lege or  that  he  was  made  uncomfortable  by  refusing  to 
do  so.  If  you  find,  therefore,  that  smoking  is  injuring 
your  temper  and  your  pocketbook  and  your  studies,  give 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  191 

it  up;  you  will  be  quite  as  popular  as  you  were  before,  and 
maybe  more  of  a  man. 

If  you  have  come  from  a  healthy  home  where  you 
have  been  taught  by  a  good  mother  to  live  a  clean  life, 
and  to  respect  all  women,  you  may  be  shocked  at  first 
by  some  of  the  views  which  are  presented  to  you,  and 
later  you  may  even  come  to  the  point  of  asking  yourself 
if  you  have  not  been  a  trifle  prudish  in  your  ideas,  and  if 
the  other  fellow  may  not  be  right  in  his  views.  There  will 
be  those  who  will  try  to  teach  you  that  it  is  not  only 
not  necessary  for  you  to  lead  a  chaste  clean  life,  but  that 
it  is  positively  not  a  healthy  thing  for  you  to  do  so.  They 
will  teach  you  that  if  you  desire  to  gain  your  highest 
physical  development  you  must  gratify  your  physical 
desires,  and  such  men  are  only  too  willing  to  show  you 
how  this  may  be  done.  The  statements  of  thousands 
of  reputable  physicians  are  to  the  effect  that  no  young 
man  suffers  physically  by  living  a  life  of  chastity,  but 
on  the  contrary  he  gains  in  strength  and  endurance  by 
such  a  course.  The  young  man  who  allows  himself  to 
be  led  into  the  associations  of  lewd  women  either  through 
curiosity  or  the  desire  to  know  something  of  "real  life" 
is  running  the  gravest  sort  of  danger.  Most  men  who 
submit  themselves  to  such  temptations  fall  a  prey  to 
them,  and  the  result  in  most  cases  is  a  weakened  will, 
a  lowered  moral  tone,  disease,  a  wrecked  body,  and  eternal 
regret. 

Only  a  few  months  ago  I  stood  beside  the  operating 


192  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

table  where  a  young  college  student  was  about  to  submit 
to  a  critical  operation  to  alleviate  a  disease  which  he  had 
contracted  from  a  prostitute.  He  was  thinking,  I  know, 
of  the  pain  which  he  must  endure  and  of  the  danger 
to  his  life,  and  looking  up  into  my  face  he  said,  having 
in  mind  the  many  fellows  to  whom  I  talk  every  year,  "  Tell 
them  they  always  have  to  pay  for  it;  they  always  have 
to  pay  for  it."  Through  many  years  of  observation  on 
thousands  of  students  I  have  come  to  know  that  the 
boy's  words  are  true.  The  clean,  continent  life  is  the 
only  safe  one,  and  those  young  men  who  think  other 
wise  and  who  gratify  their  physical  passions  "pay  for 
it "  ultimately  in  ruined  health,  and  ruined  characters, 
and  ruined  studies.  The  student  with  a  clean  mind 
and  clean  morals  has  the  best  chance  of  winning  high 
scholastic  standing.  One  other  thing  that  you  should 
well  keep  in  mind — some  day  you  are  going  to  have 
a  home  of  your  own;  and  to  take  to  it  the  girl  whom  you 
have  chosen  to  be  your  wife.  If  at  that  time  you  can 
come  to  her  with  a  body  free  from  the  effects  of  disease 
and  a  past  life  clean  and  wholesome,  you  may  count 
the  sacrifices  of  self-control  as  nothing  compared  with 
the  satisfaction  you  will  then  feel. 

In  going  to  college  most  young  fellows  find  themselves 
away  from  the  restraints  of  home  for  the  first  time.  Fa- 
thers and  mothers  often  feel  that  this  sending  the  boy 
away  from  home  and  putting  him  in  the  way  of  temptation 
and  upon  his  own  responsibility  is  a  danger  which  they 


GOING  TO  COLLEGE  193 

can  not  risk.  Sometime  or  other,  if  one  is  to  learn  to 
swim,  he  must  be  thrown  into  the  water,  and  allowed  to 
make  the  struggle  alone.  It  is  not  likely  to  work  any  dam- 
age if  some  one  is  sufficiently  interested  to  stand  by  and 
watch  the  struggle,  and  if  drowning  is  imminent,  which 
is  seldom  the  case,  to  extend  the  helping  hand.  Usually 
the  swimmer  learns  because  he  has  to,  as  the  muskrat 
was  said  to  learn  to  climb  a  tree.  Having  been  given 
preliminary  training  he  must  be  allowed  to  work  out  his 
own  methods;  he  may  go  under  a  few  times  and  take  in  a 
little  water,  but  he  learns  in  the  end  to  swim. 

It  is  equally  true  of  the  college  man.  He  must  learn 
independence  and  self-reliance,  and  self-direction  in  the 
same  way  that  young  people  learn  to  swim.  One  of  the 
greatest  sources  of  satisfaction  to  a  college  officer  is  to 
see  how  few  suffer  real  disaster  in  the  learning,  and,  when 
these  unfortunate  results  do  come,  the  trouble  is  quite  as 
often  at  home  as  elsewhere,  and  would  very  Hkely  have 
occurred  no  matter  where  the  young  man  had  been. 

The  matter  of  your  associates  is  a  serious  one.  The 
majority  of  the  people  with  whom  you  are  most  intimately 
thrown  you  may  very  likely  have  never  seen  before;  of 
their  habits  and  their  ancestors  you  can  at  first  know 
but  little.  You  should  use  caution,  if  you  are  to  choose 
wisely.  You  will  be  better  off  and  safer  in  the  end  if  you 
go  slowly  and  look  about  you  before  you  plunge  into  too 
fast  friendships,  either  literally  or  figuratively.  Your 
friends   are  most   likely   to   be  your   making    or   your 


194  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOY 

undoing.  You  have  your  opportunity  to  choose  them  con- 
sciously, and  you  should  do  this  with  a  full  knowledge 
of  what  your  choice  may  mean.  Good  friends  will  lead 
you  in  the  right  direction,  will  help  you  to  cultivate 
healthy,  right  habits,  and  will  aid  you  in  getting  out  of 
your  college  course  the  best  there  is  in  it.  Ill  chosen 
friends  may  easily  defeat  all  the  right  purposes  for  which 
you  have  come  to  college.  Now,  as  always,  a  man  is 
judged  by  the  company  he  keeps. 

All  these  problems  are  difficult,  but  they  are  possible  of 
solution,  and  they  are  only  a  part  of  the  training  in  the 
discipline  of  the  mind  and  of  the  body  which  forms  the 
major  part  of  education. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


AA    000  647  784 


SOUTH E  .  ^'CH 

UNIVERSITY  Oi-  .        TORNh 

LIBRARY 

LOS  ANGELES.  CALIF. 


